Before It Was Lost
by Akky-chan
Summary: Pre- "When All Is Missing" Allen was taken away by Levirrier and made to go through Hell. He fights for his sanity and there is no one to save him now. Biggie rating, full warning inside, and only for people who dont mind major Allen Torture. Broken!Allen
1. Chapter 1

**This is the prelude fic for _When All Is Missing._ It will contain violence, gore, swearing, torture, mental issues, OCs, lots of crying, and Allen Walker. Basically, the rating is already going to be M for 'Madness'.**

**If you are bad with dealing with anything listed above, I suggest you leave now. Like, right now. Also, if you have read the first chapter at least of _When All Is Missing,_ you already know... Levirrier wins.**

**Disclaimer: if I owned D.Gray-Man, don't you think I'd have a lot more of Allen screaming in it?? (Allen: I cant believe I still hang around with you... Me: Because you know I really do love you Allen: eesh... Me: admit it, you really like being tortured sometimes. Allen: definitely not often.)**

His muscles ached and wouldn't move, no matter how much he willed them to. He gagged, for lack of any other sound, in agony as a boot connected roughly with his side. He was knocked over onto his left side, crushing his arm. He vaguely tasted blood in his mouth, but it didn't worry him. He had long accustomed to seeing blood, and it was when you began coughing up organs that you really had to worry.

"Get up, Walker." The voice of Levirrier demanded. Through half opened eyes, Allen could see the vague, blurred outline of Levirrier looming over him.

"Inspector, you really must stop, if you keep that up, he _will_ end up dead..." A concerned voice of a nurse called out from beside the blurred figure. Levirrier scoffed and Allen heard the sounds of boots clunking down on the halls, fading away.

Two thin trails of tears somehow welled up and overflowed his party opened eyes. Soft hands carefully took hold of his arms and pulled him up.

"Are you okay?" The nurse asked. Allen did not respond. He let the tears speak for him, as he had no strength or will to stop them in any case. He still burned as he felt stronger arms coming around him and lifting him up.

"Come on, Nina, let's get him to the 'ward." A gruffer, new voice said. Allen's head was propped up and his arms and legs were tucked by his sides in positions that didn't strain them and make them hurt on purpose, like he was a newborn child being carried around. He sank into the arms, relaxing now that Levirrier had finally gone. He was begging to have safety in those arms for only moments if at all possible.

He got the answer when the arms shifted and his bangs were then being pushed put of his face. He looked up with still almost shut eyes, now without the obstacle of hair. He still couldn't see properly.

"You in the right mind, kid?" The same voice asked, though now, Allen noticed it wasn't really gruff, it just had an accent from the country. He gave a small 'unh' as his only reply. He wasn't sure anymore, but he thought he may still be crying.

"Lay him over here, Thomas," The voice of the nurse said. Through the blur, he saw colors. Mostly white, but there was a quick movement of color that hurt to look at, though he saw it well enough to know it wasn't what would usually be in a medical ward.

"Ih...mm..." The small golden ball rocketed to Allen the moment it had heard it's name called. Allen somehow managed to lift an arm up and hold the golden ball to his chest, stroking it's wings carefully, not for Tim's sake, but because he couldn't do anything else.

The arms below him shifted and snuck away, leaving him on a soft white. A bed, his weary mind guessed. Tim stayed nestled under his hand as his bangs were once again brushed out of his face. Soft, warm, white covers covered his lower body and Tim. Nothing had ever felt so soft, and his eyes could no longer bare the strain.

In one last moment, he let his head fall over to the side, where he still saw the nurse and doctor watching over him. He tried to smile at them, but he was just too _sleepy_, and his body just too _beaten_. He moved his vocal chords, not closing his mouth or hardly moving his tongue as he mumbled. The nurse brushed the hair out of his face again before asking, "What did you say, dear?" Allen took a short, but still rattling breath as he tried desperately for enough consciousness to keep awake for the few extra moments he was being asked of.

"Ank... ou..." And then he couldn't anymore.

He woke up again to find his sight had finally cleared. He cast his eyes around the room slowly, not daring to move more than his pupils for fear of ache. The medical ward was very similar to that at headquarters, except larger and with many more fancy equipment items and fashionable beds. He was about to close his eyes again and dash for a few more hours of sleep if he could get them when a wet rag was draped over his forehead, barely a centimeter from his eyes.

"You're awake, dear?" The nurse standing by his bed asked. Allen nodded slowly, grateful when he felt no pain. "I'm sorry, I couldn't get your name last time, I'm Nina," She said. Nina was not very tall, just a few inches taller than Allen. She was very slender and as much as Allen knew about women in the world today, quite a bit given his training with Cross, she was beautiful with her blond hair pulled back into a tight bun, save for her bangs, which were swept across her face in a way that made her look not unlike Cloud Nine, but her hair was shorter and lighter, and she had no scars. Her sea-blue eyes were outlined with black eyeliner and shadow, and the white mandatory nurse outfit simply made her something his master would actually look at, more than once if he could.

"Ah...len..." Allen said, his voice still somewhat damaged. It was better now though, he could at least speak somewhat. Nina looked somewhat surprised.

"You're the infamous Allen Walker the whole place is bustling about?" She asked. Allen let out a small groan of 'what?' before he felt his vocal chords began to sting again. Nina looked at him confusedly. "Allen Walker, the boy with a Noah inside him? There were rumors he had been brought to central a few months ago, even though basically no one has seen him, havent you heard about him?" She asked. Allen gave a small smile, to say he had. "Well, the rumors have gotten pretty scary lately, and I always imagined Walker to be some living horror of some sort..." She said softly.

Allen gave a weak laugh. "'M not... that bahh...d..." He tried to say, but somehow it got messed up in his throat. That was when the medical ward's door opened. Levirrer stood silently, glaring Allen down from the door. He took several long strides in until he was halfway to Allen's bed before stopping. The medical ward seemed so horribly quiet.

"You're awake. Good. Now come here." Levirrier commanded, his amplified voice echoing around the room. Allen sat up and slipped his legs off the side of the bed, trying to steady them. The moment he tried to stand, he stumbled and grabbed for the bed post. His legs shook under him as he once again tried to get them to hold his weight. He could see Nina about to protest when Levirrier scowled.

"Come, Walker!" He barked. Nina blinked in suprise. Allen tried once again to walk, and this time he managed to stumble over to near where Levirrier was standing. "It's amusing, isn't it?" Levirrier said in a carrying voice as Allen approached. "The mighty Allen Walker reduced to this." Allen gritted his teeth as he tried to keep walking without stumbling or limping, but no go.

"Ah... wa nehvah... mighty..." Allen mumbled. Levirrier scowled disapprovingly, as though hoping Allen would say something to fully deny his achievement. Allen however, had actually picked up more than poker and seduction capabilities as the student of Cross Marian. He knew plenty well how and, more importantly, when to back up himself with words.

"Of course, I forgot, you are simply the worthless vessel of the Fourteenth, my mistake," Allen gritted his teeth. He didn't need to be reminded. The hatred he radiated to Levirrier was sent rocketing around the room. He wouldn't have been surprised if something were to suddenly crash with the sudden intensity he sent out.

Levirrier glared back at him. The rage increased in the room. "Link," He said, the icy calmness more intimidating than even his anger.

Link stepped forward and clutched his hand into a fist. Allen fell back into the wall and slumped over, unmoving. His left cheek was bleeding; it swelled and darkened rapidly.

"Get him up, will you?" Levirrier asked. Link strode over to Allen and pulled him up roughly by the back of his collar. Several guards in dark gray suits approached and lifted Allen away from Link, then followed Levirrier out the door.

Allen opened one eye and smiled at Nina before he was taken again. "...Anks..."

000

Frozen hands stretched him out along the wall, tearing his skin apart. First went his right shoulder.

"Ah—aagh..." Blood slowly seeped through his shirt as the razor blaze jabbed into his skin. Air was too precious to waste on screaming, so he just cried out and sobbed as the chains tightened. His wrist started bleeding as the steel and iron-studded metal bit into his skin.

The room seemed to be getting increasingly small, but that wasn't right. Everything was just closing in on him, all the sharp things, all the things that still glinted red with blood of the unfortunate who dared oppose Levirrier.

The knife sunk deeper into his shoulder, threatening to saw it off. Blood soaked his shirt and made him hot, like he was standing by a furnace with the bellows pumping it up more, to the point where steel would glow red hot. There was a horrible jab in his stomach.

"AAGHH!" The world spun around him, the darkness seeping into his mind like a virus.

"You can stop it now," They said. The world ground to a dead halt and he was lying face-down on the white marble floor of Espidan's room. Huge like a dancing hall. Allen's eyes burned from tears and the blood pooling around him, seeping into his hair and clothes, forever dying them sickly red. Footsteps echoed around him, people surrounding him like an animal with a disease.

"Well, Walker?" Levirrier asked, his shadow covering Allen's face. "Repenting yet?" Allen barred his teeth, enraged, hate flooding him.

He ignored the strain on his body, and lunged. Hundreds of hands caught him and twisted his body. His arms pinned behind him, he was forced to him knees and his head bent forward, into a kneeling position. Before Levirrier.

Before Malcom C. Levirrier.

He was kneeling before him.

Malcom C. Levirrier.

_If ever were a lust for blood, if ever were the need, he'd soil his hands— once innocent— to save his dying greed._


	2. Chapter 2

**It's TORTURE TIME!... man, am I a horrible person or what? Okay, here's chapter 2. And yes, there IS going to be something of a story line in here. Sorry, not just mindless Allen!Torture for you all. **

**Yeah... please, no one kill me for this, okay? I DO feel guilty for making this happen to Allen... I honestly do...**

**Disclaimer: If I owned DGM, I'd be Japanese. I may wish I could go to Japan, but I'm not Japanese.**

Cold, icy, burning hands held him still. _Stay with us, stay with us, stay with us, _they chanted. His wrists were bleeding and raw, and yet one hand still tugged in a continuous rhythm against the chains, _shink, slup, shink, slup, shink, slup, shink..._ His head hung limply on his chest, which rose and fell in unsteady patterns, as his body continued the traditional pulling on the chains with his right hand. He couldn't see anything, but he knew, it was a dark, cold, brick room, which was so, so small... so small... I scared him, it was so small. No escape, no windows and just one door two feet away from him. It blinded him whenever it was opened, it was so bright compared to the room...

Like now.

It flew open so suddenly, he didn't have time to do anything more than shriek and cover his eyes before coming to his senses and trying to back away as far as he could. His air supply was dropped dangerously as the chain around his neck tightened, and his wrists' mutilated skin was dug into and burned by the iron grinding into it.

Hot hands grabbed him now, tightly on his arms. They tugged his shoulders forward and him with them. He felt a small relief when the cuffs at his neck and arms fell away, still, the chains were nothing compared to the hands.

They dragged him up to his feet. He tried to steady, but fell against the wall in weakness. He couldn't feel his legs at all, they were just cold masses attached to his lower body. Numb and immobile.

"He cant walk, then?" Link. Link. Link's voice. He worked under Levirrier.

"No sir," Guards. Bad. Leave me alone.

"Then get him up." Allen froze up as they gripped his shoulders and dragged him up again. They held him tightly and lead him out the door.

The light affected Allen. The strange brightness he wasn't yet accustomed to. His mind woke up slowly, now out of the shadows which had crawled up onto him and strangled all sense out of him. He could see now, he could tell he wasn't trapped anymore. No, no he was trapped, but there was motion, and he knew what was around him. That was what pulled him out of the black pit momentarily. Awakening.

People in the halls spared him no more than a glance, because they all knew. _They all knew._ Allen could practically hear their thoughts as he passed. _"The poor kid... Levirrier must have found a new toy" "Another traitor? Whatever happens, I'm sure he deserves it." "Great, more people being dragged away? Brat wont live more than a month" _He'd show them all, though... he'd survive this and somehow, he would get back onto the battlefield, with the Order or without it.

Still, wretched horror brimmed as he saw the large, snow-fallen white, wooden doors of Espidans's room. The opened soundlessly. It would have been better if they creaked. Allen found his foothold and pushed back. The guards grunted and tried to hang onto him. Allen's legs jerked and pushed away from the room, not working the way they should, but it was enough.

One guard swore as Allen shook his grip on his arm. He tugged out roughly, backing away as far as he could. The other guard fumbled his grip and Allen pushed back again, hoping momentum was going to be enough. His legs twisted together and he fell.

"Ngh..." He ground his teeth as boots stepped onto his head and hands. _"Poor kid, he doesn't want to be hurt..." "Stupid boy, as if he could run away from justice!" "Isn't that a little... harsh, maybe?" _The sharp ruts of the boots were removed from his hand, putting more pressure on his head. Both his hands were listed up and pulled them behind his back. They were held together as tight rope snaked around them and held them there. A tight knot jarred his muscles. Link finally got off Allen as the guards finished tying him.

He was grabbed by his hair and pulled up again by the guards. He didn't even waste energy supressing the small cry. _"What is wrong with these people?" "Insolent boy," "Hey, now, this is a bit... over the top... what's going on here?" _ He was held roughly by his shoulders and shoved into the room. The doors closed quickly behind him. Link was smiling as he looked back, on his knees again, hand tied behing him. In Espidan's room.

He tugged roughly at the rope around his arms, despite the savage protests of his marred and weary limbs. "Let me out..." He hissed. "Plese, let me out..."

_Clup, clup, clup_

Allen's head shot up. "E-espi..." The boy was no older than him. No, he was younger. Bt he was tall, and he had no face. Wait, there was a face, but there was nothing on it. The most defining characteristic was the total blandness that covered Espidan's face. Gray eyes, like Allen. White hair, like Allen. No expression. _God, please, I know I'm not the most likely person for you to help, but please, please, don't let me become like Espidan. I... I don't want to vaish. Please, God, please!_

Never when you're so forsaken. Kissed by the devil: the ultimate damnation. Allen Dominic Gray-Man Walker. A Martyr who was denied his fate to be killed for no reason that was meant to be.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, with him betrayed by the only trusted ones in his life. It wasn't supposed to happen. Never. Never ever ever, but it was.

Espidan began slowly, with Allen's vision fading. It turned black in waves, like there was fuzz crawling all over the world, covering it in dark light. He heard the soldiers laugh at him from their views outside the room, outside from all the dangers. He much have looked pathetic, on the floor, hands and knees, twitching, shivering as the cold and darkness took over him.

_A long, hot, red stream of blood shot out of his eye as it was cut. _

They laughed as he withered on the floor, screaming.

_Into his gut, twisting and turning. Hands pulled his inides out and clawed at him, clutch his throat, kill him like that. _

It was amusing for them to watch him cry out for someone to save him when he knew there was no one at all there. They had never witnessed Espidan's powers, and so they simply laughed with no guilt attached to their sounds.

_Stab, stab, twist. Kill, kill, kill me now and let me die. Don't... don't...don't...DON'T TOUCH MY FUCKING ARM!_

They only laughed louder as he swore and cried and begged for death. He was a sinner, a Noah, a traitor, a heretic. There was no salvation for him, not until he repented. He had to suffer to repent, and he had to admit to his treacherous deeds before he could repent. This was the only way for him, and so, the guards laughed, edging Espidan on.

_Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, please, stop doing this. Please. I don't want to see these things, I don't want you to look into my head, I don't want you to drag memories of Mana into my mind, **I want to stop thinking!**_

And before anyone knew it, Espidan was walking away from the traitor. The boy, they didn't quite know his name, was on his side, heaving. Small pools of blood gathered beneath him. That was Espidan's magic. You could die as many times as he wanted you to and in any way at all, and you would comes out feeling but not receiving.

There were small holes in his head and gut no larger than thimbles which bled profusely. A spot above his eye, too, a long scratch. His arm...

They all smiled at what they saw as they encircled him. It was the only way for him to be saved. Their smiles faltered as they caught his eye. He was trembling with rage, hatred. He absolutely hated them for trying to have him repent.

Levirrier approached him calmly. "Repented yet, Walker?" Walker. That was what they called him. Walker barked out swears at Levirrier, he shouted and cursed and damned Lavirrier. He fell silent after a long while when his throat gave out to numbness, and then, he sank to tears.

Walker only protested as we led him back to his cell when we tried to push him back in. It was very small. So small, it may as well have been a standing-up coffin with chains in it, but this boy was insane, and we needed to restrain him. And so we did. He cried and he cursed us, and we all prayed for him.

Because we all knew he was the one who deserved to be damned.

_Chains of the mind my soul reside, so kill me now, and cast a die, for darkness is my melody, and the one at fault is only me._


	3. Chapter 3

**(sorry, the author's note is looong...) **

**something about this one just feels sort of incomplete for some reason...**

**SHEET!! FIVE PAGES! 8'D finally!! I havent been able to write one chapter this long in FOREVER!! -cries in joy- **

**and... yeah, so... this chapter isn't as much torture as... well... mental off-balance. And... yeah, about that little 'incident' at the end... that happened to me once... -averts eyes- and I'm telling you, IT. IS. NOT. FUN. AT. ALL!!... T.T but I was in public when it happened so unlike Allen who had a nice bed to fall on, I struggled to stay concious and literally on my feet... **

**okay, enough of my ranties... ... ... ... ... .. ... yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this at all, but I have something of a plot planned out... not much though ;; ... so... suggestions, anyone? 8D**

**And I actually looked in the bible for the manna reference. So I'm hoping most of the facts (medical and biblical) are correct... and 'Alun' is supposedly the earliest translation of 'Allen' and means 'Alone', so... HA! I'M MAKING YOU LEARN STUFF!!**

**disclaimer: if I owned dgm... well for one thing, I'd have short hair. Yes, people, you heard me, WE HAVE PICTURES OF MADAM HOSHINO KATSURA 8D**

**(no, this is NOT AllenxOC, it'll be revieled later why Nina acts like this, okay? Okay.)**

There was simply quiet. No thoughts entered or exited, no light, no dark, just existence in it's simplest, most broken down form. No big words, no hard-to-understand descriptions, just being in it's essence. The movement of his arm in the chains had stopped. His eyes no longer stares at the walls enclosing in on him. His legs no longer burned with the need to walk away from here. Unrefined, unaltered, unmade existence of three celestial beings, hidden away in one small body and thrown into a coffin that sat upright.

What was his name again? A something... Al something. Alex? Alphonse? Almire? Alkida? Almira? Alma? Alfa? Ally?_ Alone? _No, not Alone... Alun? Something like that. Al..un... Allen?

"I'm Allen?" A voice stretched far beyond its capacity from screaming and cries. Broken from dry-heaves, and sore from strep caught from a soldier. Like talking through a radio with heavy static. No real sense, just simplistic words that pained his throat to say.

It should have been impossible for him to sit upright, everything was aching for relief and sleep. Simple, indefinable pain and fatigue. It _would_ have been impossible for him to sit upright without leaning on the wall, and it wasn't as though he had a choice in that. As it was, his legs were shoved up tightly against the opposite wall. Bent. And still he had no room to do anything other than breath and stare aimlessly ahead.

Bent, broken, twisted, messed, tired, empty, sullen, knotted, dead. Dead.

Were bones supposed to show up through skin like this? _When the body is exhausted and in need of energy but has no food source, it will substitute body fat and muscle to fulfill it's needs until an alternate energy source is located. _So... He was tired and hungry? Was that it? Well then, why? Why was he trapped in this hell box? Was was there a loud sound? Why was—

"Ahn—" His arms shot up to cover his face from the bright light that poured through the open doors. Open. Open. Opening like the gates of hell, flooding memories in with its supposed promising light, but bringing only the most horror it can possibly withhold. Bring it, drag it, grapple it, breath it, send it, kill it and I. Shit. "Lemigo," He croaked. "Lemme go..."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Warm. Soft. Kind. Hands. Different hands. He looked up slowly from behind his arms. Not a guard. A girl.

"Thomas, can you help me?" She asked to someone over her shoulder. A large shadow. He scrunched back up into his little ball and hid away again. She ran her hand over his left shoulder down to his elbow softly. Several times. A lot. "Thomas and I arent going to hurt you, okay?" She said calmly. Still stroking his arm. "You arent going to get hurt today." She repeated. He lifted his head up again, much more slowly and carefully. She sounded so much like...

_Mana..._

"Dont cry, dear," She said, raising her hand slowly to wipe away a small tear from his cheek. "It's okay, you're safe for now." She said again. Slowly, her one hand back to stroaking his shoulder, her other hand moved to her pocket and pulled out a small key ring. She selected one of the smallest and turned it with a small slick into the locks on his arms and legs. They fell away with loud clunks. Allen's arms slid down to his sides and when the heavy ring of iron choking his neck fell away, he completely slumped over into the wall of his confinement.

"Th' kid's been through a lot," Thomas said. "'Pletely worn out..." His strong arms, built with muscle from working on a farm, easily lifted Allen's deteriorating form from the shadows of the coffin. Nina frowned and brushed away the bangs in Allen's face.

"It's cruel." She said. "Making a child fight in this war, then confining him like this." Thomas nodded sadly. "I don't care if he's this so-called traitor or not," Nina sighed, makin sure the path ahead was moderately clear as Thomas carried Allen bridal-style down to the infirmary. "He's still just a poor, abused child..."

"Mana..." Thomas and Nina blinked and looked quickly at Allen. "Fa...ther..." His eyes were closed and leaking tears over small cuts made by Espidan's magic. Tell-tale signs of torture in Central. The very essence of sorrow breaking him apart. "'M sorry..."

Nina frowned sadly again, then sighed. She was going to get wrinkles young at this rate. Everything in Central was just... She inwardly sighed again. This was no time to be remorsing. Instead, she strained for a sad smile and brushed Allen's hair out of his face again, which was slowly growing wet with tears and sweat from a nightmare. He had fallen asleep so quickly in Thomas's arms. "It's okay, Allen," She whispered. A soft familiarity in her words. "Your father's watching you." She said.

"'M sorry..." He was still crying. "'M sorry, Mana..." Overwhelming guilt. Nina and Thomas exchanged sad looks.

"'M so sorry..."

000

His eyes felt weird when he woke up. Like they were stuck together by some invisible glue that wasn't really sticky. Around his eyes his skin was cold and clammy, and heavy. Like there was something over them. His nose too. Everything on the top part of his face. Something very cold and... not entirely solid slid down the side of his face and into his ear. The nerves were shocked, sending jolts along his body. His upper half sprung up on instinct, knocking off the black wet cloth that had been placed over his eyes.

"Thomas, he woke up," Allen turned his head in the direction of the voice, before noticing that there was a long, consistent high-pitched beep at his side. Like a heart-rate monitor that had lost it's pulse.

"Oh, it came off," She said, matter-of-factly. N something... Dangit, Allen was usually very good with remembering names, but he had still been in something of a haze when she told him her name. What was it?

She smiled kindly. "I'm Nina, remember?" She asked. He nodded, slowly, placing the face and the name together. By that time she had come over to his bed and found a small white plastic disc hidden in the sheets, connected to the heart-rate machine by one or two thin wires. His gaze was still somewhat foggy and inaccurate and the wire was so small he couldn't be totally sure. Small details were escaping him easily.

He jumped and tried to back away as Nina lifted his shirt. "It's okay, we're just hooking this thing up again," She explained, "I'm not doing anything perverted or potentially harmful, I told you, you're safe here," Allen flinched at the mention of harm, but nodded and let her reattach the small cup. It was cold and clung loosely to his chest, so it felt very... odd. The machine began beeping in patterns again. Watching it for a moment, Nina sighed and ruffled Allen's hair, making the machine beet insanely momentarily, "Calm down," She said. "And don't move around very much, these things come off easily."

Allen nodded and slowly lay back down, not upsetting the heart-rate meter. At the same time, he couldn't help but notice his heart was ringing in his ears. like footsteps. Coming for him.

Coming for him.

Coming.

I'm coming, Mana...

Mana... Mana help. They're taking me. Help, Mana, please! Please... they're taking me away, Mana, please... Please, save me, please... please...

Mana, my head.. Mana. Mana. Manma, please, Father, help... Father, they're going... going to... going...

I'm going...

It hurts... ... ... ... ... ... it hurts... ... ... ... ... it hurts... ... ... ... it hurts... ... ... ... it hurts... ... ... it hurts... ... it hurts... ... it hurts... it hurts.. it hurts, it hurts it hurts it hurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsithurtsit_hurtsithurtsithurts__**ithurtsithusrtsithurtsithurts .it..hurts.**_

It

HURTS

_I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I was stupid..._

"_I think he's having a nightmare..."_

"_Is it th't much ofa suprise? Think o' what's happ'n'd t' 'im..."_

_Mana... I'm sorry, I doubted you... I'm sorry, please... please save me... Mana... Mana... Mah..nah... Maanaah... _

_Manna was the bread that fed Moses and the Israelites in the dessert. Two quarts per person each day, but on the sixth day, they were to gather twice as much, because the Sabbath was a day of rest for the Lord. There would be no manna that day, and so the Israelites gathered twice as much and kept it overnight. Any other day, the manna kept overnight would grow moldy and filled with worms._

_It was white like coriander seed and sweet as wafers with honey. It didn't rise, so it was flat and looked like snowflakes on the dessert's ground._

Mana _kept me alive. _Mana _gave me reasons to live. _Mana _took me off the streets and helped me grow. Mana, my father, Mana who told me he loved me. Mana, whom I still love above all. Mana, my Mana, who loved _Allen.

_Mana who jumped in front of an out of control carriage to save me. There may have been a Fourteenth who was the brother of Mana, but there was still the one who loved **me. **_

_**There was still ****my**_

"MANA!"

Allen awoke from it. It. It. Not a dream, not quite a nightmare. An 'it', that he didn't know quite what it was. It was. Real. That was the worlds only truth. Reality existed. That was all there was with it. About it. For it. It being. It. It.

_Stop that! _Everything was cold. Everything. It spun... it wouldn't stop spinning... _stop saying 'it'... you're getting so... annoying, please... _Everything... so cold... he couldn't feel anything... everything was spinning... just there... tilted... cold... words weren't making sense... colors...

I'm seeing everything in all or no color... bright yellow... and black... like a bad film or something... Am I seeing ultra violent lights or infrared rays or something?

Blur. Watercolors. Slur. I know what you're saying, but it doesn't make sense in my head. It twists, but I know what you're saying. Please, please help... I'm going to fall over... I'm going to...

My head...

You feel like poison... dont touch me, please... please... I'm going to throw up... no... cant. Stop. Moving...

it's stopped...? No, make it stop...

"A...en... o...you...lo...hor...lie...dow..."

I know. I know I look horrible! But I cant move, I'm going to...

Before I knew it she had gotten me to lie down again. She didn't bother to reattach the heart-rate monitor. I couldn't breathe... I couldn't... how was I?

It all came out in raggid pants... something in my throat... my heart? Lungs? Just my chest? It burned... no, it was just... too warm. Like tar... tar in my chest and lungs. Heated tar. I was going to puke... I...

"Allen... water..."

I could only make out two actual words but understood a full sentence. Somehow.

Water...

The tar went away. Breathe... please... breathe... air...

Cloth on my face... I could think... I could think again. I could feel. My hands were twitching, something on them. My muscles ached. The joints ached. I was so stiff... My vision cleared up... fog lifted and everything stopped moving. I stopped moving.

Allen looked half dead when he finally managed to look at Nina. It took all his energy just to flop his head over on the pillow. He still wasn't breathing very well, but he was breathing. Thomas was running off to get more equipment to try and get him stabilized.

His mind had gone insane and his body had suffered from it. That was all Nina could guess. Like a reaction of great disgust. Something that upset him greatly and triggered a reaction.

"...anks..."

Nina sighed and resisted the temptation to smack him for nearly giving her heart failure. She didn't want to go into asystole _just yet_...

So she just sighed and smiled a little.

"You're welcome, Allen."

Then was the first smile she had seen on him...

"Nina's here, you're safe..."

_Cry with me, I don't know why, but dance the edge of alibi, and sing with me a lullaby until my mind can rest._


	4. Chapter 4

**The damn computer froze up and I had to rewrite half of this!! F— F— S—y B— B— B— F—!!**

**-sigh- I much liked it the way it was before it got deleted... unfortunately, it was DELETED! -sobsobcrycry-**

**Well... at least I'm getting something of a plot going here. My mind has been going on overdrive, probably because NaNoWriMo is starting (and I'm going to need to think that through a LOT ) and I have a lot of projects due very soon... like, a few more than 24 hours and I havent even started. I'm a sad student when it comes to projects... I have no will to do them at all...**

**well... since I've been on overdrive, I've come up with a few ideas for who Nina is in the story and why Lev is the way he is. So... you're going to see some slight OOCness in here... actually, it's pretty blatant, but oh well. Guess, speculate, make up insane stories, say whatever you want about them, but... if anyone says they're a couple... No. No. No. No. No. No. **

**Can anyone guess who the final scene belongs to? Yep, he's been given a bigger role than I though he would, too... I dunno why, but it's the OCs that are making this one work. Without them, we wouldn't have enough Central staff.**

**...I think Tale is coming back soon... cuz Tale and this are both at -1 days right now...**

**disclaimer: I think that... -faints from lack of sleep- **

"How's he doin'?" Thomas asked as Nina entered the break room. He poured a cup of hot camomile tea from the whistling kettle. She thanked him and took the mug carefully between her hands. It was warm and comforting after a long night of making sure Allen didn't have another odd attack like earlier.

"He's... not dead," She said simply. "That's about the only way to put it."

Thomas sighed. How many fallen Crow warriors had they seen passing through? How many soldiers with their limbs ripped off? And yet, still, having a fifteen year old _child _in their care, under such extreme circumstances... To be blunt, it was a horrible feeling that weighed on them both. Especially after the strange mental-physical spasm.

He strode several feet til he was at the window looking out to the infirmary. It was quite useful when there was a patient that needed to be constantly monitored, such as Allen. There was a stock of white hair bending in with the bedding around it. If not for even the slight color of the boy's skin, he might as well have been invisible.

In fact, if he were healthy enough, Thomas imagined that the boy could easily slip out of the infirmary without them noticing at all. Like a little ghost, slipping through a wall. "Thomas, did you ever feel sort of... dirty?" Nina asked suddenly, breaking the odd silence that Thomas hadn't quite noticed settled around them.

He turned away from the window and the patient lying in the bed outside before asking, "Whatcha mean?" Nina hummed for a moment and shifted her weight on one foot to the other and back, fidgeting.

"Well..." She started, almost like a school girl who was trying to explain some concept to the class. "All we're really doing for him is making sure he stays alive long enough for Inspector Levirrier to torture him again..." She took a light sip of her tea and leaned against the white wall. Thomas sighed and nodded, seeing her point. He supposed he did sort of feel dirty when she put it that way.

"We're just doin' our job and tryin' to make it bearable," Nina nodded and glanced out the small side window in time to see the small body stir.

"He's waking up," She said. She set her tea on the tabel and tied on her medical apron. Grabbing a few bottles of medicine and sticking them in her pocket, she grabbed a damp cloth and hurried out the door. By that time, Allen was halfway awake and almost aware of his surroundings. He tensed up as she approached.

"Hey," She whispered, "Hey, it's me, don't worry," He remained stiff, waiting for whatever she was going to do. Nina frowned softly. Just three weeks and he had already been thrown this far into insanity, or paranoia, whichever it was. It was simply bad. There were too many people who passed through like Allen.

"I'm Nina," She said, hoping talking to him would help somehow. Like how people would talk softly to wounded animals in order to calm them down. "I'm the head nurse here, I've been here for most of my life. You're Allen Walker, you came to the infirmary yesterday," Allen seemed to relax slightly at the mention of his name. "Allen Walker," Nina hissed again. Allen relaxed just a bit.

"Allen?" Allen's shoulders fell down and he unclasped his hands. She had heard stories about people calming down because someone was calling their name, but she hadn't really thought it would work so well. Allen's chest began to rise and fall in rhythm again. Breathing.

A loud clunk and whining sound sliced through the otherwise silent room as the door unlocked and opened, pouring light from the outside hallway into the infirmary. Nina jumped at the sound, spinning around quickly to see if there was something happening. She relaxed slightly— just slightly— when she saw the figure whom entered the hospital so late at night.

"Good evening," She mumbled from her spot beside Allen's bed as he drew nearer.

"He's still not conscious?" Levirrier asked sharply, as though he were highly impatient for Allen's awakening. Nina snorted.

"I doubt he'd _want _to wake," She muttered. "Let him rest a while, he's probably having a long dream..." Levirrier barked a soft laugh, not even making the other occupants of the infirmary shift in their med, weariness and pain induced sleeps.

"A long dream?" He hissed back, "I certainly hope it's not about Noah."

"If it was, I think he'd either be thrashing violently or dreaming about saving them..." She said, her voice even quieter than before, signaling to Levirrier to drop his voice also. "...or so that's what I'd guess from the reports."

"Be sure he ends that dream so, in any case," He interrupted. "We're losing time every moment he spends not supressing the Fourteenth," Nina's hands paused from fiddling with whatever machine she happened to be using at the time, turning to glare at Levirrier.

"You're supressing the Noah? I hope you realize that you're doing this child more harm than good," She growled. "He panicked a few hours ago when he first came in. You chain him in a coffin for hours and bring him out only to make him go to... you expect him to come out alright?" She hadn't realized how loud and shrill her voice had gotten while ranting. Maybe she was getting overprotective in her roll as nurse, but oh well. People were injured, it was her job to help them.

Levirrier looked down at Allen's face calmly. The silver eyes were going dull and gray. They were opened just slightly, misted over by clouds of sleep and sickness. He was the only person in the infirmary whom had awoken because of Nina's temper rising so suddenly. The others had just moved a bit and fallen back into deep sleep.

The fog in the dull gray eyes cleared just slightly as wrinkles appeared on his forehead. Small tears crept into the corners of his eyes as he tried to turn away. It was difficult and Allen eventually recognized failure and forced his eyes to close again. He waited for the barking command to get out of the bed and go to somewhere...

"Go back to sleep, Allen," Nina muttered. "He isn't here for you right now," Allen didn't so much as begin to breathe. Nina scowled at this. She turned sharply and grabbed Levirrier's coat sleeve, dragging him into the small office.

"Listen," She snapped, no longer keeping her voice low for there was no need. "You saw that, right? That poor kid is scared out of his mind about what's going to happen to him! You've planted fear into him and he might never be able to trust a human being again, much less one of the Order!"

"He doesn't have to trust anyone!" Levirrier retorted, "It might even be better if he didn't!"

"Oh, so now you're concerned about him?" Nina asked, her hands firmly on her hips, her face torn between disbelief and mockery. "Or are you involved in some grand plan to save the world?"

"I am not, and it is none of your concern if I do have some plan for him!"

"So you're planing to do all this shit to him and hope he pulls through so you can go and play games with him? What great thing are you going to do by messing with a life that's already been ruined?"

"He is an exorcist! He should expect to be used!"

"What are you going to do to them? Some of them are still just children! You have no right to destroy all of their lives like you're doing!"

"I am not destroying their lives, I'm making so they have the chance to _have _them if they somehow survive!

"I thought your exorcists were all just sacrifices? Why would you care if they lived life or not?"

"_We are all sacrifices right now!_" Levirrier yelled, his face blotched and red, the same as Nina's. Her face dropped from anger to confusion, draining out her anger. Levirrier took a breath, his face still showing his rage. "_You _listen. Right now, the Order is losing the war. We're trying to hold together but it's unlikely that will happen because we have lost so many so quickly. It will take time to recover, and even then, it's unlikely we will ever be strong enough to defeat the Earl..."

Taking another breath, he straightened his back and stood up again, straight. "That's why I'm using Walker. Walker appeared at the perfect time with his inner Noah. We cant have it awakening inside the Order having all the power of an exorcist. For all we know, he might be in a field mission and would be able to kill exorcists while claiming it was Akuma. We cant take that chance, and so, We're trying to prevent the awakening if nothing else."

Nina blinked slowly as she tried to decipher where Levirrier was going with this. "If his Noah is restrained but the powers are still usable along with his innocence... do you have any idea how it might give the Order an edge? But for that to work, we need to learn how the Fourteenth comes forward in his conciousness, and for that, we need to push his consciousness back until—"

"So you lock him up in a coffin and have Espi hurt him?" Nina snapped, understanding everything very suddenly. It might make sense, but she didn't have to like it. "I knew Espi too, you know! You fill them with shit and talk about a freedom none of us have ever had, and yet you justify yourself with.. with putting others down and..." At this point Nina noticed Levirrier had left. Left her alone in the office where minutes before she had been sipping tea with Thomas.

She slumped back into a chair after looking out the window to see if Levirrier was going to try and harass Allen anymore for that night. She felt like a school teacher trying to deal with very young children. They were impossible and sadly amazingly good with their arguments...

Her tea was cold by the time she finally picked up the cup again. And then she heard something. Not exactly a door opening, but more of a ruffle. She turned and saw Thomas trying to dislodge himself from a rather large mass of tree leaves an brush from several of the large plants they kept in the room. "He's not coming back, right?" He mumbled. Nina sighed.

"No," She said, shaking her head. "He'd have hell raised if he did."

000

He glided down the halls, silently, effortlessly on his legs which he could no longer feel. His face remained blank. He felt no muscles in any part of his body at that point, although he was acutely aware of every movement he made. Almost painfully so.

The cold air in the halls pushed into him like walls. Dead, used over a few too many times, perhaps. His body numbly navigated the halls of the Central Administration, feeling only the dull ache in his chest. Left side. Right over his heart.

One door he passed snapped the fog out of his head momentarily. Because there was familiarity behind it. Someone he had seen recently. Who was it again? The white haired boy, he thought? As everything elapsed into the fog again, the question vanished, being resolved with a 'yes, that must be it'. Very briefly, his thin memory sent strands of random images. Times when he had seen the white.

He walked on, deftly ignoring anything in his path. It was late, but he had no will to sleep. It was pointless anyway. Very few like him slept.

_If I die before I wake, you pray to God my soul to take, and though I feel safe by the hour should I fall, __send devil's power._


	5. Chapter 5

**Guard POV. I'm going to switch through POVs for a bit I think... but don't count that as a promise... I don't know what I'm going to do from here 0.0' eheheh... Ideas please? Or just hope I get a sudden brainwave....**

**...this chapter sort of scares me... but that might just be because I'm listening to 'Tukankhamen' by Nightwish right now.... it's a scary song... **

**Oi... I ran out of things to say really quickly... **

**Disclaimer – Compare this and the real manga. Take FIVE SECONDS and do that. Notice anything different? Yeah. That's why I don't own it.**

It was a week or so later when we got the orders to go pick up the traitor at the infirmary. It wasn't a nice place in there. Too many of our comrades had died in it, and by the Noah and Akuma's doing. It was the main reason we could be so merciless to the boy. The one who was possessed by the Noahs. From what we knew, he had been asking for it. A spy in our order, pretending to care about us, saving the exorcists only because there would have been a witness to his deeds.

They had praised Cross Marian. The man had received payment for half of his debts and an even more extravagant room in the Order. Because he had been able to destroy the evil which he himself had wrought.

And thus, they were once again in the direction of the cell made specially for the child. It was far down in Central, at least a floor below the regular levels, but the stairways and elevator went so deep into the ground that it was often difficult to tell which level you were on.

Once you were that hallway, though, there was no doubt where you were going. There was a horrible eerie feeling about it that left you no doubt there was something very scary at the end of that hallway. Ever the newest recruits could feel it. The lingering air of sadness was always in that place. Guards never volunteered to go down, so they went in by order of last name.

And now, two guards were once again descending to the hall that had earned the nickname 'The Earl's Chasm'. Their last names were Kertlans and Kerqi. They were both pronounced in some obscure way only they could manage to say properly. Both were relatively new recruits, and only had done this once. They shivered as the elevator whizzed and buzzed as it dropped slowly through the tunnels of the lowest depths of the Central Order.

The familiar cold obscured them as they breeched the unforgettable hall. It was dark and cold. Oil lanturnes hung every few feet, growing softly, not being much of an oponent for the dark. The brick was painted black and so the light didn't reflect well, instead, seeming to hover in it's place in the air rather than illuminating anything.

The hall was long but simple, with no doors branching out and no other hallways. At the end was the only door in the entire way other than the entrance. There were no windows, not even for the door.

Opening it, linking light flooded the hallway. Unlike outside, this room was painted white and many lamps covered half of the ceiling, which was tall and domed. Swarms of black bat golems flitted around the room, taping everything and relaying it to some control room, even deeper into Central. It was the center of the room that they really payed attention to.

It looked like a coffin, for lack of a better description. The bottom was narrower than the top and it was painted black with a large gold cross in the center. Chains bolted it to the floor and held it in place as it rocked slightly from the slightest shift of weight from within it's confines.

The usual sounds came out of it. The sounds of a chain being pulled on and then relaxed. It was eerily continuous, though the boy hardly ever moved one of his arms when he was out; they supposed that was the one he pulled with.

They opened the door quickly. A shriek and the fast clatter of chains moving greeted them. The traitor was strapped to the wall of the coffin by chains. Around his arms and legs and neck, around his thighs and shoulders. He looked like a fallen marionette like that, chains coming from every part of him almost. His hands covered his eyes as best as they could, trying to save himself from the light.

He was in the same clothes as he had been the day he had been brought in, drugged partly into sleep. Torn white shirt missing half it's buttons, one sleeve hidden by the massive scroll of talismans covering one his left arm where his weapon of damnation was truly embedded into his arm, stolen from the true owner. pants with ripped and frayed edges, shoes that were peel at the heel and the stitches were coming out. They were coated in the smell of vomit and blood as the stench of the coffin was released into the room. His clothes weren't cleaned, he wasn't bathed, and being left in for hours in complete dark in a small space at a time could ruin a person.

A small, dark space with chains clinging onto a small body that was covered in his body fluids. It was the image of nightmares. The control room staff who oversaw this place and experimented within it had to be completely heartless to do their job. Or at least to not puke whenever they saw it. As it was now, the two soldiers were having a hard time with just that. It was utterly gross and vile, the little thing in the bottom of the coffin.

It's sad silver eyes stared up at them in horror as it slowly lowered the chained hands from it's eyes, which were already partly covered by the long, stringy threads of white hair that had lost any sheen it might have once had. One soldier sucked in his gut and leaned down with a key. It whimpered and tried to shy away, backing itself into the wall as though hoping it would be swallowed up into the black iron.

One by one, the limbs fell down from their chains, often slamming against the floor of the coffin with a sick thud, though that was better than it landing without a sound or with a splash, which usually signaled it had landed in vomit or blood. It's expression was in a solidified, permanent horror-struck look. It's eyes wide and forever staring, mouth slightly agap. They didn't like it when the Noah-child looked at them with that expression, though they could never place just why.

As all the chains dangled where they were released, the soldier grabbed it by the scruff of his neck or by the strands of his hair and jerked him forward and into the bright white room. He let go for a moment as it was on it's feet to see if it could stand. As always, the legs twisted together and the knees buckled the moment the exceedingly painful grip released. He fell to the white floor without a sound but the echoing crack as his head hit the smoothed over concrete.

The guards groaned as the boy remained motionless and devoid of emotion as he lay there. It was strange. It wasn't but so long ago that the boy had given Central the fight of it's life.

_Allen elbowed the nearest guard as hard and deep as he could, causing the man to sputter and drop to the floor, clutching his ribs. He spun and knocked the other guard behind the knees, tripping him and making him fall into the wall, where he hit his head with a sick thud and lay unconscious on the floor moments afterwards. _

_He ripped the thin wired handcuffs that held his right and left hand together. Slanting himself so his left was tilted towards the ground, he sprinted down the hall. He skidded into people, he knocked things over and broke anything in his immediate path, trying his best to cause as much havoc as he could. Anything to slow the Crows who were certainly coming at that moment._

_The halls were crowded with people. Too many people to move quickly in. The halls were too long, they didn't seem to ever end. It was scary, like the everlasting nightmare. You kept running but never got anywhere, never went closer to where you wanted to get to, but the people chasing you came up behind you so fast. _

_He heard them behind him. He heard their yells and the loud thumps that their boots made when they came down hard on the floor. He heard them screaming obsanities at his back, cursing him, threatening him. He ran faster, his legs straining and beginning to ache. His ribs tightened and crushed his chest, making breathing impossible. He kept going. He couldn't ever stop—_

_The floor came up at a horribly fast speed, giving a loud crack as he fell into it. His back was stabbed with a pain as the heel of a boot came down onto it and he choked violently as his neck felt the other heel. They swarmed him, their boots digging into him, kicking him, stepping on him, hurting him. _

_He gritted his teeth and tried his best not to cry out. A boot caught him in his mouth. His attempt failed as he yelped in suprise at the painful, intentional hit connected with his teeth. Blood filled his mouth and he felt something hard against the side of his gum. One tooth out._

_The blood seeped onto the floor, despite Allen trying to keep his mouth closed. He twisted under the people on top of him, knocking several over, pushing most of them off balance. He bit into one hand with his remaining teeth, his blood seeping onto the hand. Whoever's hand it was screamed loudly and tried to kick Allen away. People behind him yanked at his hair and ripped at his skin, trying to drag him away from whomever their comrade was whom he was biting._

_He kept his eyes closed firmly so he wouldn't have to see everything he was doing at that moment. A fist flew across his face and his teeth were pulled out of the hand, throwing his head against something hard— a wall. He whipped his fist around him, feeling his arm slam into bodies he refused to see. People cried out and screamed as he charged forward again, blindly, hoping not to run into anything. _

_Things fell against him as he ran. Doors fell open as he crashed into them. Cuts and bruises appeared on his body as things he couldn't bring himself to see found him. Found him, hit him, beat him until he was somehow able to escape them again. He was literally running on auto drive. He was scared._

"_He's fighting blind!"_

_He ran faster. He didn't want to be caught. God knew what they would do to him if he was caught. But God had abandoned him long ago, on the night he turned twelve and damned himself with his father. Why did he do it? Why had he been given the choice to do it? He hadn't known!_

_He was thrown against the floor again, a hand choking his neck while his arms were pinned at his sides, held by the painful heels of boots again. They twisted and ground his hands into the floor. He opened his mouth for a pained cry to escape, though it came out as a gnarled moan. _

"_Dont fight back, Walker, you'll get bent into even worse shape," A familiar voice hissed into his ear._

"L-Link?" He gasped out, unable again to open his eyes. The hand on his neck twitched forward into the below of his jaw. He hacked and sputtered, unable to get any air.

"_Yes, it's me, now shut up, you have me angry enough because of the damn biting shit you pulled," Link hissed. Slowly, he pulled his hand back off of Allen's neck and held him down by pressuring his chest instead. The boy below him gasped for air. His chest heaved under Link's hand. Link felt just a bit bad for doing this to Allen, but it wasn't as though having pity was going to help him. The next person who caught him probably wouldn't stop with just suffocating him._

_And so, Allen was beaten as they dragged him through the hallways by his hair. He could hardly move from the wreck of pain he was when he was finally brought into that bright white room. They drugged him again, and when he woke up...._

_It was pitch black. He couldn't move anything more than a few inches. Chains restrained his entire body and he was cramped up into some small little place. Worst of all..._

_...he could only scream at the dark._

The boy had been defeated within a week, but not completely broken. Down here, in the darkness, he was docile, fearful, a living doll who could do nothing at all but cry in terror and shudder in fear as they came. Down here, he let them kick him and control him without making any argument. Or even a sound.

But he was different when it was lighter, not like the dark coffin or the bright room. He was different when it was warmer. He rebelled again and became dangerous.

The two guards cast each other glances as they both stepped down to lift the silent child from the coffin-like prison. He was limp as they let go, seeing if he could yet balance. He wobbled a moment before slipping on something nonexistent and crashing to the floor. He lay there, immobile as always. He wasn't yet awake. Wasn't yet able to resist. One guard bent over and took advantage of that.

Before, they had only bound him when it was necessary, but the last time they waited until then, a guard had been injured. Badly.

The limp form only make a weak whimper as his arms were pulled back roughly and handcuffed behind him. His arms were twisted behind his shoulder blades as he was pulled up to his feet and dragged down the hallway. He remained silent. Link watched him, standing back in the hall. The Inspector and Crow had been assigned the mission of watching over Walker, forever hiding behind every corner to see what was happening with the child, and every time Walker tried to escape, he seemed to be brought back by Link.

Oddly enough though, he never seemed to struggle when it was Link restraining him. The guards had dismissed this, after all, Link was a Crow.

So it wasn't but so odd that Walker had eyes only for Link as they passed where he was standing, stilhoused in the rapidly disappearing light from the white room. His silver eyes, wide and bleak, moved slightly as they dragged him past the inspector. The two guards shuddered. The silent exchange through eyes of two such people was enough to set most off in panic.

Walker slowly came alive again as they left the elevator. First came the arms, as always. The fingers twitched, the hands moved slowly, feeling their bindings. The fore and upper arms jerked softly at them, trying to find more room for circulation, being pinned uncomfortably behind him. The deformed left arm was soon grasped and pulled on by the right arm, as though hoping it would come out of his socket. Next went his eyes. They cleared and grew lighter, wide and fearful, dashing around to everything and everyone in sight. The rest of his body slowly caught up to his head and neck, but by the time that happened, the guards always tried to be where Espidan worked.

At the sight of the large white doors, there was always a struggle.

000

They watched from above in wonder as the child collapsed onto the floor and screamed. Obsanities ripping from his throat. Swear and cries that made uninteligable sentences cut through the air and the looking glass. They were frightened, what else could they do but laugh? It was an escape from the fear the agonized creature before them brought. One man tried to crack a joke, and the other would laugh whether it was funny or not. They looked away, looked apart, ignored the thing that would kill them so easily.

Even the most self-reliant among them had to admit, they believed Levirrier to be near their savior for his impossibly hard ways. He was able to stand above the beast and mock it. Meanwhile, all the soldiers could only think of one thing as they looked on at the bleeding form on the floor. How easily they would be dead if this thing ever got the chance to escape and wished to kill them. They would be dead within instants, easily. He was, after all, the child of Noah. He was dangerous. He was a killer.

_As we wait for guiding light, let us pray 'survive tonight'._


	6. Chapter 6

**Four and a half pages... I havent written this much for _Before _in a while.... or maybe never, I dunno, I'm too lazy to go check 7.7; **

**...this chapter and the following are going to be vents for the way things are going at my school as a result of the election. I'm fine and dandy with Obama winning (though I was a McCain supporter...), but it's NOT FINE that every --- Obama supporter in my school is just going all --- --- over me for losing the election!! SO! ... This spells mental torture and hell for Allen #—.— sorry kiddo. -emos-**

**ANYWAY! -coughcough- sorry about that... I know it feels like it's been a while since I updated anything (hell, it feels like forever since I wrote anything) but it's only been about ten days for all of them. I'll try to get everything updated by the weekend. **

**Disclaimer: If I owned D Gray-Man, don't you think I'd be a much better, more confident artist? Yeah, you'd think so... but I'm not... even if it is weird that we take the same weeks off...**

Levirrier was angry. That and beginning to panic. Allen Walker was proving harder to break than he had ever anticipated. Than most had ever dreamed. The imbecile should have simply submitted long ago, rather than put himself _and _Central through so much.

Nina Levvia, the head nurse, was becoming protective of him, though not as though it was unusual, as she tended to become protective of all her patients. It was simply more dangerous to be protective of this one. The boy was currently, as Levirrier sat at his desk, ripping out his hair in frustration, lying in the sick bay supposedly half dead.

Half dead! That was halfway too far gone for such an important player!

If the boy be in his right mind, he might have wondered why Central hadn't just killed him off rather than having Espidan give him excruciatingly painful, but not fatal torture. He might bave wondered why they were going through so much trouble to keep him off balance but still plenty healthy and alive to be able to move about and rebel.

As it was, keeping him in this state, he had almost killed two guards in amazingly well formulated escape plans for one so close to complete insanity. The Crow prodigy, Howard Link, was also in the sick bay, though a different part, nursing an infected bite to his hand. It had been three months since that particular incident and they had yet to be rid of the inflamed, pussing flesh which he hid with his white gloves.

Despite such, Howard Link had also shown interest and prehaps even sympathy for Allen Walker. More than he ever had before when observing him. Levirrier worried silently about his German counterpart's protectiveness of Allen Walker. He realized that Howard was more attached to the young traitor, even if the rest of Central had managed to remain so clueless though all this and still believed the young Crow prodigy to simply be doing the assignned job.

Levirrier groaned. The sooner Allen Walker submitted, the better. The better fr the world, not just the Order. Not just Central, or Link, Nina or Malcom himself. His reasons were beyond those petty restrictions, even though they certainly made it much more personal and immediate.

As soon as the thought entered his mind, a grinding pain ripped through his head. He clutched his head, almost ripping out a good portion of his hair, falling off of his chair and onto the floor. Papers flew across the room as his body knocked into them.

It was only a few seconds, but they were an agonizing few seconds. Levirrier breathed hard as he rightened himself his hand supporting this weight by pressing down onto the floor. Something below his hand crumpled like a piece of paper, but thinner and more fragile than even that.

As he stood, the crumpled object remained in his hand. Looking down, he realized it was an article from a newspaper from today. Front page, it looked like. He uncrumpled it and held it tightly at the edges to try to smooth it out.

It would have been a completely useless, almost irrelevant article, if not for the rising sense of melice and hatred rising from within the farthest part of his mind at the thought of Allen Walker, warping what had only minutes before been anger and confusion into more sinister visions. The usual after-effect of the sharp pain.

_Serial Killer in Custody_

_Robert Fredrick, 32, the serial killer who  
__ has for the past few months been roaming  
__ the back alleys of London has finally been  
__aprehanded by Scotland Yard. _

_ Currently in custody, Fredrick has admit-  
__ ted to the murders of Joan-Bell Apritties, __22,  
Maybelle Coonhide, 24, and Katie  
__ Brenicks, 21. He is to be executed in two  
__ days time, on November 12th in the year  
__ of XXXX. _

Levirrier smiled. A very bad sign. If this were to go as he was planning it in his mind, _if _it could go as he planned, it could be the turning point in the war. It may very well be the one way to get yet another superhuman being against the Earl. Allen Walker would come a step closer to being controllable. If this failed, however, there would be one less to fight the Earl and possibly one more serial killer running around London. As though there weren't enough of those around, though. The Jack the Ripper case had been hell enough.

He returned to his desk and picked up the receiver old the French phone and turned the dial several times before holding the receiver to his ear and leaning into the mouth piece on the phone itself. "Good evening, I am Malcom C. Levirrier of Central Command of the Dark Religious Organization of the New World Alliance," He spoke into the mouth piece, using the well practiced, higher-class English and the introduction that every member of the Black Order who made constant phone calls would have to learn. "I would like to ask you about the serial killer, Robert Fredrick. Is he dead yet?"

000

Allen leaned against the wall below the large white window. The infirmary was as always, blindingly bright. For him, especially. He had the bed right below the window practically reserved. He took a deep breath. He felt like crap, no two ways about it, and the glare and reflection of the room was not helping his eyes nor his brain. Nevertheless, he was happy to have the window.

Sunlight woke him up much more than natural light ever could. He had spent a total of three days in the white halls of the infirmary. His mind was working better than it had in quite a while, though that was not an entirely good thing.

He was processing time again. He knew they would be back for him soon. They never let him rest more than three days except for the first time he ever came and was in for a week. It was impossible to explain how scared he was. He forced air through his lungs once more, realizing had become lightheaded.

It was warm, sitting there in the sunlight. His clothes had been ripped and shredded enough so that the Vatican had finally decided perhaps it was best to give him decent clothes again. So it was much warmer than he was used to.

Still, he could feel the cold, the pungant smell of the lower floors reaching up to try and snare him. Drag him down, chain him, gag him, bind him, suffocate—

He convulsed, his breathing stopped. He fell over, clutching his stomach. His arms twitches wildly, sending jolts through him every time. Every flick—

"_Ahyc—" _His throat clenched suddenly. Six times. His heartbeat grew abnormally loud and it rang in his ears. Throbbing, moving his whole body. His stomach churned hatefully, twisting inside of him. He clutched his stomach tighter, despite his trembling arms. God, he felt like he was going to throw up. He choked again. His legs buckled under him and he fell from his squat to the floor. His heart was still throbbing in his head, now with the rapid flow of blood through his ears. He was going to be sick—

It finally stopped and all Allen could do was roll over onto his knees and try to aim for the puke bin at the foot of his bed as his stomach convulsed once more. His throat heated and a horribly vile tasting _thing _came up and tout through his mouth, heating his entire face, inside and out. The chunks came out along with the thick liquid. I looked as horrible as it tasted and the smell made him want to puke all over again. His stomach complied quickly.

He whimpered, rolling against the bad as slowly as he could, holding his stomach. Remains of the liquid dribbled down his chin as he gasped for breath, the vile taste still haunting his mouth, made worse by the air. The sun still shown through the window, falling onto him, warming his trembling body. He kept his eyes closed as he just tried to focus on the sun rather than the smell and the taste and the aching of his limbs. His breathing slowed down gradually, not as frantic. His heart gradually slowed down, as did the rush of blood in his ears.

"_Shit"_

He lay still as he heard quick footsteps coming towards him. A cold rag touched his face and he flinched, but was too worn out to do anything more than that. The warm trickle of bile from his mouth was wiped away and a scraping sound signaled someone had taken away the throw up bucket. His limbs still hurt and his face was growing cold with the water on him.

He felt himself being lifted and the sunlight shifting it's glow on him. He thought numbly that he must be on his bed again. He had only managed to move on his own the other night and he was already back in the bed. He wasn't quite sure exactly how long he lay there, just breathing and feeling the sun on his now even more abnormally pale skin. He wondered vaguely if he would get sunburnt because of this, but decided he really didn't care but so much. He was quite sure he had fallen asleep for some time, because it seemed so suddenly that the sun had disappeared.

His eyes flickered open and discovered that he had indeed fallen asleep. The earlier blindingly white walls of the infirmary had dimmed to a light gray with the absence of the sun and the rising of the moon. Allen looked up and realized that the window's curtains hadn't been drawn shut. The moon was full as it's light wavered into the room. Allen sat up slowly, realizing sheets had been drawn up over him. He rubs his arms and the bandages on them, trying to gain some warmth as the room had cooled in the night.

He glanced at the grandfather clock across his bed near the door of the infirmary's office. It was long past midnight. What on Noah's Ark could have possessed his body to make him awaken at this hour?

He realized then that it had to be the rising voices outside the door.

He gasped and froze, recognizing both of them.

"_Stand aside, we arent going to kill him."_

"_No, you're going to have someone else kill him! I saw the carriage, you're going to have him added to a body count!"_

"_Not a body count. He wont die unless he's truly that useless, and if he is, there will be no loss."_

"_What by the Gods? Malcom, you're losing it! Use your common sense, he's a child—"_

"—_A child who we need to work without complaint. Trust me, like the others, I know what I'm doing."_

"_You said that when we had Lenalee here. You said you had everything under control and that you knew exactly what you were doing when you—"_

"—_Lee was an unfortunate case, but in the end we did succeed, correct?"_

"_Because Lenalee had someone come and love her again! If not for Supervisor Komui coming, we would have lost her entirely and now you expect a miracle like that to—"_

"_Stand aside!" _

There was a thud and the door flew open. Allen pressed agasint the headboard of his bed, like he was hoping to be sucked into it, or at least to have some distance put between him and Levirrier as the man strode through the door. The man looked absolutely insane. Allen caught a fleeting glimpse of Link helping Nina onto her feet behind Levirrier, but he soon found out that Levirrier wouldn't let him be distracted. He stepped into Allen's line of vision and almost forced Allen to meet his eyes with his glare. The glare that promised only bad things to come.

And then the man smiled. "You're already awake. That's good," Allen trembled, his blood running horribly cold in an instant. Then Levirrier changed back to the glare again. "Come."

Some other inmates of the infirmary had begun to stur and wake. Some turned to watch the spectacle, the two involved never noticing a thing.

"Ih... ih d-d—" Allen stuttered, his throat still healing over. "Ahha—" In a moment, Levirrier's hand was clasped around his neck. It slowly crushed him, pulling his head up and strangling him. Allen's hands clawed at the restriction on his throat as he gagged and choked beneath the crushing hold. His eyes grew wider when he realized Levirrier was in the perfect mood to kill him.

"Pah— sta—st-stap!" He cried, withering beneath the man as his head slowly grew light and his vision fuzzed over, though his thoughts were as clear as they'd ever been. "Ih— Ih gow!" Levirrier's hand dropped and Allen slid down the headboard, carefully covering his throat with his own hands. He gasped quietly for air while Levirrier glared down to him from above.

"Well, Allen Walker?" Levirrier asked. Allen trembled. In the moonlight, Levirrier's face was cast in shadow, but his golden eyes glared down at him with more fury than even the Earl might be able to muster up. It was absolutely _terrifying _to have this thing glare him down. So he trembled. What the hell was Levirrier planning to do with him this time? "Are you getting up or not?"

Allen nodded weakly, trying to lift himself up off the headboard and the bed. He wobbled and gripped the side of the bed when he got up, trying to regain balance. Levirrier snorted and Allen's face colored lightly. He could stand fine earlier in the day. Espidan caused pain, but not servere injuries. It still affected him like this, though.

Levirreir turned, walking briskly across the floor and out of the infirmary. Allen stumbled, trying to keep up with him. He passed Nina outside the door and Link grasped his arm as Allen came toward him and helped him walk. "Be careful, Allen," Link muttered in his ear as they trotted behind Levirrier. "This isn't going to be fun for anyone."

Allen nodded. He had realized that quickly, but hearing Link verbally voice concern for him made it much more dangerous than he would have thought. Link tightened his grip on Allen's shoulder, making Allen wince. The grip loosened immediately. Link could feel Allen trembling under him. He himself didn't not know what had possessed Levirrier to stage something like this... though that was a lie, he knew exactly what had made Levirrier react so radically to everything.

Allen bit his lower lip. He was starting to get truly frightened as they walked down the spiraling hallways. It wasn't the way to Espidan's room, nor to his cell, he was sure of that, and that made him even more worried. And suspicious.

They hadn't even bothered to bind his arm.

**...long reviews today, please? I have to go to school tomorrow and face all the people who want to hate me... I need something to be happy about!! TT-TT Guesses about what's going to happen? Why Levirrier's acting so weirdishly? Being angry about how I just typed 'wierdishly'? ANYTHING??**


	7. Chapter 7

**...almost a full page of this was single lines/single word lines... **

**...I felt kinda bad about this, but I kept imagining it in my head and decided it just had to be done since in '_Found_', Allen's beating himself up over "all the horrible things he'd done in Central" so... TT-TT I'm sorry, Allen...**

**So... the quote at the end isn't actually one I made up for once, it's from "Savin' Me" by Nickleback... which I was lisening to while finishing this up... it seemed completely out of place, but I love that song far too much, so this is what you got for a quote this time, sorry.**

**I probably screwed up the last scene SO bad, but that's a hard thing to write well! -sobsob- it sounds so crappy!! Forgive me for botching what should have been a completely horrible, dear-lord-i-pity-you scene... **

**Long reviews for trying, at least?**

**Disclaimer: Yume wa kitto kanau! (no... sorry, I lied, I don't own it...)**

**note: that said 'dreams surely come true' in Japanese... thank you SJ!**

It was a smaller room than the rooms Allen had been in in his recent remembrance. It could hardly be called a memory, as he really couldn't make a coherent line with the fragments he had outside of the hospital ward. Maybe it was a forth the size of Espidan's room, maybe half the size of the white room where they kept his cell...

No, that was inaccurate. All the rooms were white in this wretched place.

But the room was _tall_. It towered higher than Espidan's room's ceiling and Allen strained to tell the top from the walls as he craned his neck upward. There were windows above him. The whole wall from te feet above his head was pure glass. He could see through it, barely with the glare in his eyes and the angle he was at, but he could see.

There were so many people, so many people he had never seen before. Some people he had. Some of the guards, some of the nurses, some he had passed in the hallways while being dragged along by the guards. He was sure they remembered him. He was sure they had scowled in disgust at him or grimaced in pity. He didn't want any of that. Goddammit, he wanted to be a human again.

He saw Link and Levirreir standing beside each other across from him. His eyes stopped scanning the crowd and locked onto them. They didn't look back down at him.

And then another door on the other side of the room creaked open. A man walked in.

He was taller than Allen, gaunt, his hair ratty and faded from what must have once been a lovely shade of brown to a dirty darker color, strands of gray standing out harshly against the filth. His cheekbones were high and apparent, eyes sunken in and lips cracked. He had a slight limp as he walked, covered by ripped clothes. He looked like he had been in the factories for too long.

His blue button down shirt was covered with grime and his brown, caped trench coat was frayed at the edges. His rubber boots clunked on the floor as he continued walking forward, into the room, standing opposite of Allen.

He looked around the room, spellbound, as Allen had done. He looked all around, at the blinding white walls, at the windows up above, the people beyond it, whom Allen was sure he had never seen any of them before. The man then looked down and at Allen. The last place he looked.

"Fuck's with your arm?" He barked. Allen winced. That was right, they had left his arm completely uncovered. They didn't bind it or bandage it or give him long sleeves. As strange as it might be, he felt exposed more so than he would have if he had been in front of a golem camera, lower half bare.

Just his arms. Just the way people _looked _at his arms. Like they were a sin beyond recognition. Two have arms that were so mismatched, so fucked up.

"Allen Walker," Allen's head shot up at the sound of Levirrier's voice flooding the room. His heart clenched. The other man watched him, Allen was sure of it. "You have been charged and proven guilty of heretical crimes against humanity and the Black Order. You have been held here in Central for three months and have refused to give repentance. Penalty is death.," Allen trembled where he stood. God, he never asked for any of this, why couldn't they see that?

"Na— nat gih—" His throat pained as he tried to form words. Tried one last time in a futile effort to tell them he was innocent. He barred his teeth and glared as hard as he could at Levirrier when the words wouldn't come out.

"Robert Fredrick," Levirrier continued, ignoring Allen's savage glare. "You have been charged with the murders of three young women and also found guilty. Penalty is death," Fredrick did not look the least bit surprised, but glared at not Levirrier, but everyone in sight.

"However," Levirrier continued, a large smile growing on his face. Allen shuddered and stumbled backwards at the sight of it. Nothing good could ever come of this, he knew. Nothing good ever had come from Levirrier being happy. "Central Command is willing to let one of you walk away with no death sentence, and in the case of Robert Fredrick, perhaps even walk away with no record..." Allen saw the sudden look on Fredrick's face. The look of disbelief that he might get away entirely.

"Remember though," Levirreir repeated, "Only one of you gets out."

Allen drew in breath as the sudden meaning of that hit him. _You cant be fuckin' serious. _Fredrick pulled something out of his trench. A curved blade, like a scythe. He held it tightly onto it as he raised it up and bent down as though about to spring. _They're fuckin' serious!_

Allen pushed off sideways as the man lunged. He stumbled, his legs aching from the sudden strain of jumping. This was just fucked up!

Fredrick lunged again. A serial killer, he had no qualms about murdering people, especially if it were in his personal gain or simple pleasure. Something Allen had been forced to do at one time and given up easily.

Allen fell down onto his knees and tried to trip him, but failed. He scuttled back, avoiding the scythe plunging into his leg by hardly anything more than a foot. He tried to get back up in a rush, the man already turning to try and kill him again.

He couldn't see the people in the windows anymore, his eyes were too fixed on the man in front of him, the small scythe he held. He knew they were watching him though. Some far back part of his mind told him that they were observing every move he made, that they were seeing if he would be able to run, assess how he found when severely handicapped, placing bets on whether he would kill or be killed.

"I don't want to die yet."

That thought, that fact, that feeling had been bred into him since infancy. Everyday, you live or you die. If you were near dead, you were still alive, if you were dead, you were gone.

If only that were always so simple.

You didn't have to take a life to keep your own.

Was it so wrong to want to live without killing everyone who wished to do you harm? Was it so wrong to want to forget the time when you had?

Everything seemed to slow down very suddenly.

Allen saw everything in the wrong colors. Grays and blues, whites and blacks. Gravelly colors.

His movements suddenly seemed much faster, his mind speeding up as adrenaline flooded him.

Numb.

_I saw it like a spectator behind the windows would._

_I twisted around, sideways, my hands pushing the rest of my body up off the floor in a sideways flip. I fell out of the handstand with my legs falling into the man's neck. I jumped back, putting in distance before charging forward back at the man again and kneeing his gut._

_The reaper gorged into my shoulder as I twisted around to free myself from the man's immediate area, trying to get back out of striking range. Crying out in pain, I jerked and almost took my entire shoulder off. The blade ripped part of my shirt and exposed my arm even more. The weapon dripped with the reddish black blood of my Innocence like some macabre horror scene. _

_The man lunged at me, clutching his stomach. I held onto my left shoulder with my right hand and tried to staunch the blood flow as I jumped away again. It was cat and mouse all around the room because he was larger, stronger and better nourished than I was. He also had a weapon. I kept dodging, running, trying to find a way out. A way to escape everything._

_A hand gripped around my arm and twisted, throwing me over, knocking me onto the ground on my back. He jumped on me, kneeing my stomach. He held the scythe up, positioning it to rip into my chest at any given moment. My instincts hit again and I kicked up into him, making him fall forward. The scythe's blade shaved off part of my cheek and came dangerously close to my eye as he tried to catch himself._

_I rolled and thrashed under him, trying to throw him off. We switched positions, me on top of him. I pulled a hand back to punch him, and he flipped me again. His weapon forgotten, he tried to do as I had tried. I cried out as his knuckles scraped into the shave of my cheek and came back slightly bloodied from the result of the friction. He pulled back again, cracking something in my jaw. I spat out blood as I lost one more of my teeth. _

_As he pulled back again to repeat the ritual, I thrashed my fist hard up into his stomach. He gagged and fell off me, stumbling, holding onto the wall for support. I wobbled backwards, face and shoulder agonizing. _

Allen fell backwards.

It was his fault.

That was all Allen could think, 'I didn't want to'.

_I tripped on my heel. The man lunged at me again, stamana much more than I could have ever held in my state fueling him. He jumped up, going for a dive as I was defenseless on the ground. I was defenseless..._

_So I screamed as the blood flew across the hall, watching the macabre scene from a front row. Worst seat in the house._

Allen trembled as he looked up, gazing into the lifeless eyes of the serial killer, sullen and void. Clouded. Forsaken of life. The blood trickled down his arm, soaking into the whiteness of his shirt and cloak, staining his black arm that held the limp form above him, skewered like some freakish statue.

His right arm trembled as he lifted it up to shove the limp form off of him, the blood beginning to dribble out of it's mouth. It was heavy, but much lighter than it had been only a few moments before. It fell to the floor with a sick squelching sound as the blood splattered against the floor and smeared for the weight on top of it.

Allen took in a deep breath, swallowing in the platinum stench of death, the iron and copper lingering in his mouth. Even through the very air, it had infected him again. He breathed again. The room tilted and began to be dyed bright red. It covered his vision, covered his hands. His left hand. The long, taloned hand. The long, black hand that killed anything in its way. The skinny white hand. The one tinted with bright red, drying on his skin to dark pink. The one that touched it after and pushed the evidence of what he'd done away.

It was all he knew. It was all he knew.

The ragged breaths of his, the pounding of the organ that he had skewered in his head, in his chest. Beating hard, two times, one for each of them. Murderer and murdered. The blood before him. The blood on him. His cloak was slowly turning pink. Slowly swallowing the man's life essence.

He shook harder, barring his teeth and trying to back away from the scene again, his arms shrinking in terror and the cloak vanishing in horror. He ignored the throngs of people rushing past him, the ones grabbing onto him and the ones rushing to the limp body. The corpse.

Two strong hands suddenly gripped him tightly, stopping him from moving farther back, holding him close to where he had murdered. The bloody trail that smeared across the floor from the corpse connecting to him because of his ruined clothes. He heard people talking to him, trying to get him to look away from the man on the floor, but none of them did. His eyes were wide and staring only ahead as his body continued to tremble. Blood streaming off him.

God, he had killed another.

God, he had killed anothe

God, he had killed anoth

God, he had killed anot

God, he had killed ano

God, he had killed an

God he had killed a

God he had killed

God, he had kille

God, he had kill

God, he had kil

God, he had ki

God, he had k

God, he had

God, he ha

God, he h

God, he

God, h

God,

Go

G

—

"Please," He whispered, his voice high and cracking with the strain of uttering words, "Wake me up..."

_Come, please, I'm calling_

_Hurry, I'm falling,_

_I'm falling—_


	8. Chapter 8

**Large-scale writers block should be the equivalent of genocide. **

**...I am thankful that Thanksgiving gets us out of school, even though it was a horrible last day. And yet my favorite fanfics STILL havent updated to cheer me up at all... only the really short good-for-short-read fics have come up lately, (I needs fics that will save me from the world for an houuurrr... -mourns- ) and I don't know why... they never left me like this before, and with the lack of DGMloveish this week, motivation is really down **

**So I'm feeling a good bit like Lev is right now —.—'' ...unfortunately, if I drink anything more potent than a soda, I think I might puke... stupid !$#%&()-+='?T7!! (I don't know how many of those are actually going to show up, but OH WELL!) **

**-cough- right, sorry, had a moment there... more like three in a row actually... anyway, I had to dig up my folder of medical randomness that I got over the summer for this, so I hope it's accurate... but after the scene switch, it's all random crap that I learned when I was little and hurting myself all the time. It's affective, but I don't suggest it for major wounds. (oh.. and my mom can ALMOST tell temperature like Nina can. She did it on my brother once, it was AWESOME xD She was like... half a point off or something...)**

**And I'm just guessing that Allen would faint, cuz I don't know about psychiatric stuffles like that.**

**Eesh, this is getting too long and I've already hit you with a pointless rant... sorry. Review please? Mental instability NOT good for the soul (make any sense? No? ...good...)**

**This isn't a filler, by the way.**

**dsclmr- d nt wn t (translation: I do not own it) **

Allen didn't move as Link shook him. He didn't blink as a gloved hand was waved before his eyes. He didn't react when he was pinched, and his chest didn't seem to rise or fall. Void white eyes stared blankly ahead, at the spot where the corpse had been several minutes before, the medical squad having removed it from the premisis. Only the bloodstains and slight pieces of organs that had been ripped and fallen out remained to tell the tail. That and Allen, at least.

Though Allen was obviously in no condition to be telling any sort of tail. He was slumped on himself like a rag doll, almost, though he did have enough structure to keep himself sitting up, even as people swarmed around him and tried to get him to react. Link in particular was kneeling in front of him, trying his best to make Allen at least began breathing, if nothing else.

Nina put a hand on Link's shoulder, startling him. She smirked happily, obviously saying that a Crow shouldn't be down on his guard. Link snorted indigently, but got up to let her do her job.

She didn't know if Allen was conscious or not, but seeing as he wasn't responding at all, she had to assume that he wasn't. Leaning forward, she put her hear within a few centimeters of Allen's mouth and listened. A soft, very slight stream of air brushed against her ear. He was breathing at least.

Nina leaned back and took off a glove, holding her hand up to Allen's forehead, ignoring the blood that had splattered on him during his so-called 'redemption of crime' as the staff had publicized it as. Everyone knew it was complete bull shit. They played along anyway.

The only things that were going to be different from before were going to be Allen's mental ability and the way he would be treated from here on out. The number of things they would be able to do to him and the way they would be able to. The soldier training in Central for even general soldiers was mind-breaking.

No one would even think to question that a former convict was being treated harsher than anyone else in Central by far.

A small frown creased her lips, a combination of those thoughts and the burning heat of Allen's forehead.

"..one hundred and one point three," She muttered. "He has a high fever," She moved her hand from his forehead and pressed ever so lightly against the underside of his chin, on the slant. She searched around for a moment before pulling out her pocket watch and counting the soft thumps under her middle and pointer finger.

She sighed in relief as she felt his heart beat only being higher than normal, and not slowing drastically. Or stopped. The last thing she wanted to do that day was to have Allen in asystole and no way to bring him back.

"Get a cot," She told a nearby guard. "He needs some help," The guard nodded and sprinted out of the room at her word. She looked up for a moment and saw Link looking expressionless as ever, Levirrier behind him. She almost shuddered. It was one of the most intimidating images she had ever known, and she had the misfortune of seeing quite a few results from Akuma battles.

She looked back down at Allen again, ignoring the sudden ice on the back of her neck from Levirrier's stare.

Allen's eyes looked ligter than they ever had, even when he was near dead in her hospital wing. The faded gray had suddenly turned almost white. Their color, or rather, lack-there-of, was only magnified by the dark red smearing across his face. She brushed several strands of hair behind his ear and away from a particularly bloody part of his face where half his cheek had been shaved off.

She put her palm to his forehead with one hand and with the other held his lower body, pushing him down onto the floor as he seemed resistant to let gravity do so. To her suprise, he wasn't even stiff as she pushed him down. He just let her command him.

_Did that one thing really hurt you so badly? _She wondered. The cot finally came and another guard pulled Allen's limp form up from the floor and laid him on it carefully, with detailed instructions from Nina. Mostly telling him to be careful when lifting this or that so as not to hurt him more than he already was.

When he was safely on the cot, Nina glanced at him again. He still looked to be breathing, and his condition shouldn't have worsened but so much after only a few minutes. But his eyes were still staring up into the nothingness. She carefully pulled his eyelids shut. He was going to dry out his eyes, but on the other hand, those eyes truly made her scared. Wide, white eyes that never blinked.

She bent over and picked up the tooth that had been knocked out during the fight, hoping it hadn't yet dried out. It was an adult tooth and Allen needed as many of those as he could get. She grimaced as she noticed that half of the tooth was missing and searched around to try and find whatever other piece that he had lost after being cracked as the guards took Allen away to the medical center.

000

The medical by smelled exactly as it always did— like sick and medicine. The heavy stanch of painkillers and rubber gloves. The background hacking and coughing of ill soldiers was mixed with the quiet moaning of the mortally wounded and the everlasting beeping of heart rate machines. In the back, rooms of surgery were either coated with a thin layer of blood or being cleaned and the nurses were busying themselves with dashing through the labyrinth of medical rooms, beds and tables.

Levirrier cast a brief glance around the medical room, eyeing the beds and medical utensils scattered about on tabeltops and bedsides. He was looking for one person in particular, a person who had been admitted, once again, into the care of the nurses and doctors not but thirty minutes ago and had, within the past five, been declared safely stable.

He found his prey in a bed by the window where he had been before, each time they had extracted him once again from the medical center for the past two months.

Yes, they had let him go the first month with no medications at all, but it had been a necessity.

As Levirrier neared the pale body that seemed nearly invisible aside the pale white sheets, he noticed things that had changed about the young boy's appearance. He was thin, incredibly thin because of the lack of food they supplied for him. To feed him was rare and he only got half of what he needed even in the medical center and despite Nina's protesting starving him. It was a technique used to train eagles in the north. Deny them food and sleep and they did eventually break.

It was proving to work on humans as well, as much as Levirrier loathed to admit. And that he was such the cause of the trial was not exactly much of a comfort. Nor was the thin outlines of a ribcage that showed through the thin shirt they had given him only two days earlier. Already coated in blood and gore.

His mouth was only opened slightly, so there was no way to know if his tooth had been mended and placed in his mouth again or not. Dark circles were under both of the boy's eyes. Levirrier sighed very softly. It was no suprise really. Who _could _sleep in that vile little coffin they had forced him into? The observers of the cell room had told him that the sound of Walker pulling on his chains rarely halted, even at night.

He shook his head. There would be no where to maneuver if he began to doubt this now. He wasn't even quite sure why he had bothered to come to see Walker. Was he actually thinking that he would wake up while he was there? Bah, that was foolish to even consider as a possibility. Of course, people had woken again in much shorter time, even shorter time spans than a minute. This time, however, even if Walker _did _happen to wake up, Levirrier was sure that he would feign sleep, just to be loose for another moment.

He hated Walker as much as he could, but he honestly couldn't blame him for what was happening. He could only try to staunch the fatal wound. The fatal wound in the form of a virus that would infect and kill everyone who was nearby unless he, Levirrier, was able to find some way to stop the spread of the virus.

The way to kill a plant was to take out the root, wasn't it? He had to stop Walker spreading his disease before it infected all of them, and as much as he couldn't deny it, he wanted to save the boy to a certain extent as well.

"Daydreaming about Order domination?" Nina asked spitefully. Levirrier smirked, aroused from his trance easily.

"Perhaps and yet, no," He answered tartly. Nina snorted, coming around to the other side of Allen's ed and placing a hand on his forehead to check his temperature again. It must not have met her standards because she wet a cloth in a nearby sink, wrung it and folded it neatly onto Walker's forehead.

"Ease up on him," She muttered, "I wont be able to bail you out every time you go too far," Her eyes narrowed into a glare as she readjusted the covers over Walker's body, pulling them down enough to observe the wound on his upper arm, almost at his shoulder, which had only ten minutes ago been sterilized and bound. She snorted. 'Sterilized' her ass! There wasn't even the faintest trace of someone using any medicine, no faint gleam of goze or even the pickled smell of _vinigar!_

"God, are they trying to get him infected? Honestly..." She muttered as Levirrier watched the ordeal. Pealing off the blood soaked bandages and revealing the place where it seemed like a chunk of his left shoulder had been gouged out. It apparently hadn't, the skin and muscle had just been ripped apart. The bone...

Levirrier frowned to hide his disgust at the small bit of white in his arm. "Trust me, it's not my intention to kill him."

Nina looked up from applying the alcohol to the body of the wound. She scowled deeply. "Coulda fooled me, _sir_," She spat. As much as Levirrier loathed to admit it, it stung.

Levirrier returned to his room with Link by his side and slid wearily into his chair behind the desk. His elbows hit the desktop with a heavy thud and he began to rub his temples habitually. He groaned sourly, trying to clear his mind to no avail.

Would this work? Would the plan go into action? What if it didn't and Walker was still resistant at all times? What if something went wrong? What if the Earl attacked during this time of crisis? He didn't put it past that Anti-Christ. The madman would attack and could wipe them out at any moment, and yet he kept them waiting, biting their nails, waiting for the fatal moment.

Levirrier almost thought the thing _enjoyed _making them wait.

It had been a long day. He had ordered and watched the killing of a man with deft eyes and no words but the statement of execution.

His head hurt. His eyes were heavy and tired. His throat was dry from arguing with Nina. Somehow though, he caught sight of a letter on his desk. White and sealed with the official crest of the Order, the Rose Cross, in black wax. Red ink on the back had his desk and the word 'urgent' scribbled haphazardly.

He broke the seal and opened the letter, pulling out the thin sheet of white-yellow parchment and skimmed along the poorly scribbled words, obviously written by someone, probably a scientist or soldier, in a great deal of hurry.

He skimmed over it. It was very short. By the end though, Levirrier felt a massive headache coming to take over the place of the minor ache. He dropped the letter onto the tabel and looked up at Link, still standing on the other side. He let out a low growl and covered his eyes with the palm of his hand.

"Link, when Allen Walker wakes up, have someone inform him that General Cross Marian has been murdered," Link's eyes widened and his mouth opened in suprise. It took him quite a bit to collect himself and finally turn to go out the door.

"Link..." He paused and looked back. Levirrier was still in the position at his desk, covering his eyes and holding his head. "Do me a favor and get me something... as strong as we have..." Link looked down sadly.

"Of course, Levirrier," He said softly before rushing out the door.

Levirrier was left in silence after the door had been closed with a moderate bang. He sighed. As much as he might have hated Cross for being able to live with the habits that Levirrier had been struggling against for so long, he had to give the man one thing as his eyes fell on a stack of bills that had their own designated corner on his desk.

The man knew good, expnsive drink, if nothing else.

_You give us heart, give us light. Please give me some rest tonight._

**I have one really omg-spoil-the-bad-mood question.. why were people squeeing?? 0.0; That just... doesnt exactly make sense to me...**

**...reviews ease the tortured soul... dont make me kill someone I wasnt planning to by not reviewing, cuz you KNOW I'll do it... **


	9. Chapter 9

**I got just a bit masochistic when writing this... and almost ended up starving myself for no reason other than I couldn't keep the food down, so if this scares the s-- out of some of you, blame my spontaneous acts of sadism/masochism**

**This was just past 7 pages when I was done so I hope it makes up for some of the wait. School is hell and I have no time.. even though I just had thanksgiving break, but as I said. Writer's block should be equivalent to genocide. **

**There are three little lines at the end in italics, and they're from the song _'Breath into me' _by Red (I think? I dunno for sure) And I was listening to that while writing the end... but I just realized, it's HARD to keep Link in character! Usually I just write him little short parts, but this time, he's gotten a bigger part.**

**And all the girls out there (and more unfortunate boys who witnessed it) all know about those days when you just get ticked off, right? Nina's having that day.**

**I probably went through mood swings when writing this. First I'm sadi/maso like Allen, then I get like Link and end up being all nerrg-philosophical and then I'm Nina (no explanation needed), back to Link and then, Allen again... and I do bite things when I was angry. I have teeth marks on my notebooks.**

**Brownie points for who can guess what happens next chapter, even though part of it is pretty obvious, but here's a hint for where the brownies come from: One of our old buddies (not much of a buddy, really) returns. They've already appeared in this fic, too. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Breath Into Me, -man, and the filing-teeth-into-points thing belongs to some little Irish lady gangster from NewYork in the 1900-somethings.... no joke, she hurt people with them.**

His breathing was the first thing to break when he woke. A startled, choked, high gasp ripping itself free from his throat as he plunged into consciousness. Like jumping into freezing ice water as he realized so very suddenly that he was alive and awake. Breathing, heart pumping again.

Heart pumping ice through his veins. The horrible cold within him seemed to move through his thin frame, coarsing past his heart and lungs, detouring through his hands and feet and head, running back to his middle and sinking into his very soul.

Within a moment of his breath, his eyes snapped open, wide and scared. They searched frantically the moment he was able to peel the thin skin off the silver, slowly whitening orbs. Blurs of color passing over them as though they were muddy blobs. They scanned nowhere, flinging themselves to every shadow and corner, searching for something only he could see. Only he could comprehend.

He jerked, his fingers balling into fists and slackening into hands like spiders again. His legs twitched, throat clenching on his breath, withering in pain and cold, still flickering his eyes open and closed again.

Open and closed.

Out and in.

All at once it was a horrid pain and in another moment it was calm and peaceful, only the after affects before his heart pumped the cold out again and it washed though him again in a glorious wave of frigid blood. Frozen blood. Red ice shards ran through his veins, piercing the walls at every sharp turn and random moment.

_It's nothing, it's nothing!_

He jerked again, his shoulders clutching to his sides and hands flying up to his chest, clutching over his heart and lungs.

_It's okay, I'm fine! It was a dream!_

His already shattered breath was chopped up more, into a rapid gasp for air. Any air. Whatever there was out there, he needed it. His lungs weren't there. Just an empty space for air to refuse. He jerked again. Less violently. Quivering. Shaking in that bed.

_It was a dream... A dream, I'm okay... I'm alive._

In a sudden deep breath, his lungs—returning to his chest in a great burst of throbbing—filling once again. He hurt, but nowhere near as much as he had only several moments ago.

But oh God... he hurt....

His shoulder was blaring in pain, the heavy smell of anesthesia, pain killers, heavy medication wafting around him. Why did it still hurt so much? Weren't his nerves supposed to be numb? Had the effects worn off so quickly? The sweet, sticky, puke-like smell of the medicine hung in the hair like some sort of omen of doom, along with another intoxicating smell.

Like copper, iron, almost.

His brain tried to delete the word from his language. He didn't want to recognize it. But whatever sort of bitch fate was, she was having none of that. She wouldn't let him be free from the knowledge of what that smell was just yet.

His head moved stiffly, rolling over to its side, pressing down on something that stung painfully in his cheek. Another bandage.

_...scythe slid into the floor, shaving off part of his cheek_

He swallowed painfully, a lump like a second adam's apple lodged in his throat. His neck craned and his cheek stung as it was rubbed against the sheets as he tried to look down at his left shoulder. Allen wasn't quite sure how large his eyes were at the time, but they seemed to refuse to focus on where he wanted them to go. He was avoiding looking.

They had practically tied his shoulder onto him. The long wrap of cloth clung across his chest and arm, binding his shoulder to his collar bone like they hoped it would stretch out its skin and bind onto him once more. The cloth had been dyed red, or pink in places, by bleeding that must have refused to stop. It was wet, patches glistening and some places the blood being diluted by excess amounts of goze wrap and... vinegar? The sour smell broke through the others as soon as Allen searched for it, almost a relief from the other muffling smells.

Almost a relief... sourness? Bitterness? A relief? Oh God...

He had really fucked himself up this time! He almost laughed.. he _did _laugh, the lump in his throat pounding painfully like it was trying to get out of his skin.

He sounded horrible, his laugh tainted— _laughing tainted—_ with the sick masochism that suddenly washed over him.

The sounds weren't even coming out of his throat! It was like he was convulsing all over, his body shaking rapidly, a massive seasure almost, but not. Why the hell was he laughing? _Laughing?_Of all the fucked up things he had ever done, this had to be— _had to be—_

...what the hell? He didn't even know what it was, or why he was laughing when he had just killed a man God knows how many hours, or maybe even days ago! With as much as he had been sleeping lately, with all the nightmares he had been getting, he was sure for a fact that he had been out for... for... God knows how long he had been out.

He stopped laughing, shaking, convulsing, whatever a person was to call it. His heart was quivering in his chest, beating faster and harder than he had heard it beat in a long time. He hadn't even lifted his head from the pillow yet, in whatever timespan had passed since he awoke. He couldn't even begin to describe how horrible he felt at the moment, his limbs aching and his mind dangling. Roped back into his grasp, but still dangling by a thread.

He wasn't sure what to make of it when he found himself reviewing the murder in his mind without even thinking anything of it. State of shock maybe? Or perhaps, he was simply irrelevant now? Wait... irrelevant was the wrong word, but it fit just the same. It fit _perfectly _for him. No matter what he did now, it wouldn't make any difference at all.

It was absolutely _hilarious!_ Him, Allen Walker, preaching so fucking often about saving people and doing the right thing! He was a fucking _murderer!_ A psycho, that's what. Psycho, psychotic, crazy man, he didn't care what they called him now. Whatever they wanted to call him. Anything, anything at all!

What would it be regularly now? Maybe several profanities that wouldn't be but so out of place? Could they possibly have enough creativity in them to think up some god-awful name that actually stung a bit? Oh, that would be absolutely rich if they did. Rich. Completely unthinkable from what he could see.

He was still shaking, more of shivering though, as footsteps broke through his masochistic daze and came closer to his bed. Allen realized his eyes were still partly opened and that she, or he, would realize he was awake. Allen really couldn't bring himself to care at the moment. He really, honestly couldn't care if whoever it happened to be was carrying a _scalpel _with the full intention of _driving it through his head._

Maybe he might even enjoy being skewered.

As long as it wasn't in his eyes. That one he would pass.

"You're awake," Allen didn't exactly see his face, though he didn't really need to. He didn't even really need to think before the man's name appeared in his mind.

Allen remained silent but his body still shivered as he turned turned his head, looking away. Hiding the insane smile. "You don't want to deal with anyone right now?" Link asked, in what sounded like a sigh. Allen closed his eyes, which wasn't very difficult, unlike opening them had been. They were still heavy, and tired.

Link sat on the bed, the matress bending into a valley under his weight. "Are you going to be like this a while?" He asked. Allen gave no reply. He didn't trust himself enough to. Listening to something other than his warping thoughts seemed to be calming his insania. The smile was slowly leaving him, his jaw muscles feeling tired and stretched, his body beginning to ache again next to the comfortable sheets.

"If you're not even paying attention, I might as well stop talking, so at least make a movement or something..." Allen pushed his back up against the warmth of Link on his bed. _Keep talking._ His breathing shallowed, no longer gasping for deep breaths. _Just keep talking. _A tight, warm hand rested on his left wrist, careful to not disturb his shoulder. "..Not everyone here... wants to see you do things like that, so..." Link paused, as though the words had suddenly become very difficult. "...Don't get that idea, I mean... Just..." He sighed and gave Allen's wrist a small squeeze, trying to emphasize the words he was having a great deal of difficulty getting out.

"Don't give up on us yet," He finished. "Central's put you through a lot of shit, and..." The grip tightened just enough to make his hand hurt a bit, but nothing more than that. "...just... right," he released his grip. "Don't give up on humans," With that the warmth was sucked away and the valley lifted. Footsteps in heeled black boots clicked across the floor.

Leaving Allen alone in the infirmary again.

_'Don't give up on humans.' _

The temporary insania he had slipped into was gone, no trace to call upon it and truthfully he had no wish to. Link had come and dumped a bucket of cold water on him.

_'Don't get that idea.'_

He had had a dream while he was out cold. A bad dream that could easily happen if he kept going down. If people asked him to kill again.

_**'Don't get that idea.'**_

"Link, you gave me it."

000

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Link asked as Nina dressed yet another patient's wound. His spar with several enraged civilians had given him a decent blow to the head and he was currently lying unconscious on the bed with a good chance of a minor concussion. Nina frowned as she wound the bandages over the thick mass of hair and the patches she'd had to shave away to get to the no-longer bleeding wound. He would not be a happy man when he woke up.

"Allen?" She asked. "No, he's going to be perfectly fine, happy, dandy, spiffy and whatever the hell else those british people say!" Link shrunk back. Nina was not in a good mood. "I don't really know, I'm not british, dammit!" She gave a strong tug on the bandages that made the man jerk, even when unconscious. "There's absolutely _no fucking way _that he'll want to die after this! Nooo, there's no chance of him feeling guilty or angry or even more self-destructive then he might have already been!"

Link became terrified as she ranted on. Mind, he may have been a Crow, but he knew better than to upset a lady and he knew _much _better than to do something like make a woman who was in charge of his health to be angry at him.

"What were those idiots thinking? It wasn't as if they would be able to control him better now that he has it in his head they're going to make him kill people— which he obviously didn't want to do!" She tied the knot on the white bind forcefully and lay the man back down much quicker than she would usually have done, marching over to the medicine cabinet and almost wretching it off its hinges.

"I mean, it's not as if he's in psychological turmoil already, he only has a second person inside him who might kill him at any moment, people all around him who he thinks are out to kill him, no contact from his friends for the past three months and— and— AARGH!" She pulled her hands away from the medicine and ran them forcefully through her hair. Then she seemed to remember Link was there.

She turned on her heel and glared at him. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Hangovercure," Link squeaked out as loud as he could through the blazing fires of hell that was the gaze from Nina's eyes. She reached in with a practiced hand, not even looking away from Link and pulled it out with a bottle of liquid and threw it at him. Not tossing, throwing.

"TELL THAT DAMN MAN TO STOP DRINKING, TOO!"

Link caught it and ran.

Right back into the infirmary were Allen was after talking with Levirrier for not even five minutes.

A guard had been sent to tell Allen of his late-Master's demise.

A man Link had seen before in passing stood beside Allen's bed, where the boy had somehow sat up, despite the supposed pain he had been in when Link had been there only several minutes prior. He wasn't anything other than a footsoldier, probably picked at random by Fye, the secretary.

He handed Allen something that looked like a letter, not the real letter, surely, before quickly turning and leaving in what much have been supposed to be calmly, but it was a horrible failure of an act and he wasn't looking where he was going. Not that Link was either.

They collided halfway across the room. Link's head hit the floor painfully, the braid of his blonde hair not helping much at all, though it took a bit of the impact. He groaned when he sat up. The footsoldier sprang up much quicker and apologized, realizing he had bumped into a Crow, not just another soldier.

And then he ran away before Link could even get to his feet. Link couldn't blame him, being the barer of bad news to a boy who was only recently forced to be a killer.

Who killed with instinct.

And by the time he had been able to look up, he really might have just run out of the room also. He might as well have not come in anyway.

"Link, go away," The shape on the bed hissed. Link blinked and stood where he was. "Go _away_," Allen repeated. He was bent over the letter, gripping it and crinkling it in his trembling hands. Link recognized the heavy emotion that hung in the air within a ten meter radius of Allen.

_This is how it looks when I am standing on the edge._

Not sorrow, not guilt. There was no hint of relief or calmness. No lusted revenge or any of the emotions that you would have expected from Allen. It was completely raw, not padded or coddled or bottled up by the caps and faces Link had seem Allen wear back in the Order.

_This is how I break apart when I finally hit the ground._

The boy twitched when he noticed that Link was still there, in the room. He turned slowly, looking in Link's direction. There was still blood on him, his bangs hadn't been washed in months and plastered themselves onto his face in tangles. Bandages were on his face, some peeling off from him rubbing against the sheets, but what got Link was Allen's eyes.

They were pale white and glaring ice at him, damning him to the seventh shade of hell.

_This is how I disappear when I throw myself away._

"LEAVE!" He yelled.

Link opened his mouth stupidly, backing up slowly from where he stood. Towards the door. Slowly at first, then he turned quickly and did what the guard had done.

He ran.

000

All Allen saw was bright, unholy, ungodly red. He heard the violin strings in his head, squeaking and jeering in disharmony, the vocalists screaming in his ears. A thousand needles prickled over his skin which crawled like a living, breathing _thing_.

Anything near him, he wanted gone. He wanted to rip the bed and the curtains and the door and rampage around the world. He wanted to hurt something. _Anything._ The anger in him swelled like a huge balloon in his chest, expanding and rising with his body heat, about to burst at any moment and take his carefully picked apart heart with it.

Well what was wrong with that?

He bit his left arm, biting down as hard as he could. He drew the black substance that acted as blood in that arm. The horrible jolts of pain riding up to his shoulder and blazing within him with a golden fury. He crushed the letter onto the bed and beat at it with his right arm as hard and fast as he could.

How was it even a letter? IT WAS BARELY A SCENTENCE!

_Walker— I regret to inform you that Cross Marian has been murdered_

How— why? Who the fuck wrote that letter? He would mangle the bastard! He didn't care anymore!

His arm burst into the white flames and long cloak that had killed a man not twelve hours before, the long talons still stained with the slight tinge of red on his once white and gray perfection, and he drove it into the note.

That _bastard! _

_Demon!_

_He sold him to Central for what? A chance to run away? To fake his own death? To pretend to die? He couldn't be murdered so easily, he couldn't die before Allen killed him! **That wasn't fair!**_

He twisted his talons into the bed, ripping apart the note and springs in the matress, the blanket shredding before his eyes. His thumb sliced too close to his right arm and blood was added to the mix, the white sheets slowly turning bright pink with him.

They thought he was too weak, to injured, too unstable to invoke or think straight.

The smile came back. That insane, masochistic smile that stretched his mouth so wide his face felt like it was going to stretch in half. Rip in half. Split. All he needed was a row of sharp teeth to go with it, but he would have to go without those. Maybe when he finally got out he would file his teeth into points. He wouldn't need knives then. No one would kick him in the mouth again when he was down and struggling, and no one would hit him when he was hurt or injured. No one, ever again.

A startling clarity sliced through the haze of anger and red, a simple thought that made everything clear. Made him know what he had to do.

He jumped to his feet and bolted to the door.

_Open your mouth and close your eyes, then scream til dawn for a big suprise._


	10. Chapter 10

***angert* Damn you school, damn you homework, damn you big-grade projects, damn you stupid history teacher, damn you maths, damn you PE and FUCK YOU, WRITERS BLOCK! (the real reason this is in M isnt actually torture... it's the A/N's language =.=# )**

**Sooo... DC is apparently uploading _next time_, 'cause no matter how I write it, it doesnt want to work, so until I can finish the really annoying flashback way of writing, it aint comin' up, and I'm just as angry as everyone else about this, btw, 'cause I have about TEN BILLION things I want to do with it and I cant get past this EARLY,EARLY,EARLY-ON chapter =.=##**

…**.I actually had a playlist going while writing most of this... very loud, shouty music going on the whole time... (hopefully, this will vent enough angry feelings from all of us so that we'll all stop getting angry about my crappy inability to update....... )**

**Levirrier's Official Theme Song: Lucifer's Angel – The Ramsus (seriously, start pitying the guy D8 I have a lot of sh** in my head to do to him 8D ) (does anyone else find it odd that I censored 'sh** ' but left in all the swearing at the top...? )**

**translation note:  
****Alle ist verloren – German – All is lost**

**Disclaimer: you really think I'd make a person angsty and antisocial by giving them FLOWER hallucinations? Haha, NO, therefore, I aint Hoshino D8**

**EDIT//: Oh, shit, I accidentally wrote 'Dominic' instead of 'Damian' D8 Dominic was originally supposed to be the 14th's name, but I changed it to Damian for language&history&meaning reasons (And Dominic's my friend's brother's name, so... D8 DANGIT, DOMINIC, STOP MAKEING ME TYPE YOUR NAME! )**

And all that came through his mind was the thundering of the small heart in his chest that had yet to be broken completely. However small that intact fragment was, it forced his mind into an icy haze of clarity and was almost all that gave him the strength to tear through the halls as he did.

And yet as every footstep that wasn't his own fell, and every breath he didn't drag came and went, every grunt or word he didn't utter passed over him, blood red rage washed over him like boiling water. Words couldn't describe the pain that ripped through his left shoulder and clutched around his chest and lungs as he ran faster and faster than he had ever tried to before. His teeth dug outside the edge of his tongue, sharp and brittle from lack of care, his hair didn't move with the wind as it was plastered onto his face from grime and sweat and blood.

Most of the people in the hallways didn't even realize what was running into them and making them drop whatever they were carrying until they managed to get up and look back at him, and by then it would be too late to stop him. He was a monster this time. If someone came close to catching him, if they grabbed his arm or tried to trip him, he dug his claws into their arms or wrists until they released him or bled. He kicked and pushed and fought his way down the hall with a blood lust that could only be quelled by breathing freely.

He wouldn't be caught this time. They wouldn't get him.

His entire body was throbbing with the force of the blood thundering through his veins. Pulsing with such force that it seemed like it was pushing him forward with more force than his own legs could possibly give him. Thunder, thunder, thunder, like Skin's lightening coming, raining down from the heavens to crudely burn the Earth.

How did he know Skin used lightening? He didn't care. He kept running.

His throat was burning, his legs were burning, his shoulders and arms were burning, on fire. Yes, he was ablaze, and if he didn't get out soon, he wasn't ever going to.

Never

Never

Never

He clutched at his head to make the horrid chanting stop. Or he thought he did. Or maybe he just ran faster, barreling into people. Knocking them over.

Something in the halls smashed. He didn't hear it. He ran. And he saw blood while he was running. In the endless stream, their faces were blurred together, like a tape going so slowly that the features were covered in cotton, distorted to unrecognizable states. Someone yelled at him, in his ear.

It was muted, but it still ached his mind.

"_HE'S OUT! HE'S OUT! HE'S OUT!" _The gross outsiders, the ugly offenders, the ones that broke the Divine's Laws. The ones that hurt a clown.

They were angry at him. His heart was hurting him at the thought. They were angry at him. People weren't supposed to get angry at him. You weren't supposed to be angry at a clown.

(_I wanted to make you smile, that's all_) He was in pain, all over him (_God, damn you, I wanted to make you happy_) He couldn't breathe and he couldn't move more than running, pushing people away (_Why did you do this to me?_)

Someone didn't get out of his way. Wouldn't let him through as he pushed against him, screaming, raging, maybe only in his head, but still raging, screaming, nonetheless. He hurt so painfully. And then the man moved, but he didn't know why, didn't hear the screams of pain as Crowned Clown ran the man through, or the yells and cries in the halls as people tried to restrain him, but he didn't even know it.

Inside his head, there was a smile; a twisted smile, a very, scary smile that he wanted to get out. He wanted to get rid of it. He wanted to kill it. Kill it. Red, you couldn't see through red well. He would get rid of it with red! Who's red? Who's red? Which would be thickest?

His screams in his mind— he may have been screaming as he ran, but he didn't know, HE DIDN'T KNOW!— they grew higher, louder, deafening. Painful. And then, right on a cue hidden by noise and bloody canvasses, someone grabbed him. His arm. The wrong place, he didn't care where someone grabbed him, it could have been anywhere, _anywhere_ but his arm!

He fell, the ground coming up so quickly to his bloodied eyes. Blind eyes. But he knew it was coming. His body was so heavy, too heavy to move, but he managed it, somehow, his face aching from where he had crashed it against steel. The red was thicker, oh, God, it was so thick, he couldn't see anything.

"_Mana, I can't see," He whispered as his forehead burned from the brick that had been thrown at him not so long ago gashed his forehead and bled into his eyes._

He kicked at his murders, screaming with all the sound he couldn't muster. He was so far away, he wasn't used to being this far away from the world. He wasn't used to having three voices in his head and thousands of voices screaming around him. He couldn't see or hear now, blind and deaf, he lashed out with his mouth and hands and feet, so angry, so frightened. He didn't care what he hit, he just wanted to be let out. Maybe if they saw how desperate he was...

...maybe if he begged hard enough, he could survive. Maybe he could _survive_.

"_Are you okay?" A soft hand on his shoulder moved and began to wipe away the blood, another on his forehead, pressing the wound shut. He shook his head._

He would live, he was sure, he would make it! A soft light lit inside of him. He would survive, he just had to let them see he would. He WOULD! HE WOULD HE WOULDHEWOULDHEWOULDHEWOULDHE— he kicked out again, chest pounding, red ever clogging his vision, hiding the victim's face, the screams shattering his ears, muffling the victim's screams.

_SCREAMS_!

"_Mana..." He sighed, reaching out an unguided hand, searching for his other. "Mana, where..." _

_A soft, uncalloused hand gently took his— _uncalloussed? But Mana's hands were those of a working mans', not a child's— _and held it tightly. "I'm here," Mana whispered, wiping away the last of the blood in his eyes, and when they opened, they didn't see Mana._

_Instead, there was a boy, young with black hair and— "I'm here, Damian, stop worrying, you idiot."_

His thoughts stilled, his body stiffened, and for only a moment, he was frozen in place. His blood was cold and unmoving, his vision horrifyingly clear, able to pick out the smallest details of everything around him, each tattered pair of clothes, each speck of blood, each and every small, tiny dent on the floor.

And all of it was shifting around him, so quickly, then stopping, just for an instant, so he could see ever-so-clearly, crystally, the fear and _cold, cold _terror he had sparked.

And then, the Crows, a gaping, bloody Link among them, wrapped his body in spells. They covered his face and his eyes, and then, Allen saw no more.

000

"What now?" Link asked Levirrier, his voice controlled, hiding all concern for the boy. "He's snapped, he's scared, he's utterly insane. He almost killed me. What now?" Levirrier was silent, ignoring Link's questions, staring only at the boy, fast asleep under heavy drugs, who was bound in chains and talismans, his chest stripped to expose the tattoo of the innocence and the wound on his shoulder, still glistening from blood, partially reopened.

Link looked away from Levirrier, staring at Allen. Nina would be angry. She would be very angry and he knew it. He didn't blame her at all, because this was a very ugly picture. Not a particularly sad one, and not a particularly stomachable one, simply a very ugly one. Link paused, waiting a little while more before repeating: "What now?"

This time, Levirrier responded. "What now? Now, now he is broken, correct, Howard?" He asked. Link frowned a little at the use of his first name. Levirrier was trying to change his rhetoric now, but Link nodded anyway. "When something is broken, is it not an opportune moment to rebuild differently?"

Link caught on, and Levirrier continued. "Allen Walker is powerful, as much as I detest to admit, his alliance with us drastically increases the chance of the war being won. Even more so, his servitude will increase the success rate by at least fifty-percent," Link didn't want to believe this, but he had seen Allen battle the level four. The boy was frightening. Link had to argue, had to make a bit of sense in this madness.

What the hell was he thinking?

"Levirrier... is it truly God's will to rewrite one of his creations? Even an evil one?" It was a mistake to ask that, it was a mistake and Link knew it. He just had to try a little.

"_God's will?_" Levirrier asked a moment later, his face growing darker. "_God doesnt create evil creatures, everything has a purpose, and defeating the Noah's in ours, Link._" It was coming, and he was asking for it, but he couldn't stop once he'd begun this conversation.

"Levirrier—"

"_Nothing should come between us and our goal, Link,_" Link shrunk slightly. "_If we fail, __**Alle ist verloren**__, nothing more will matter._"

Link stood silently, contemplating everything Levirrier had said. Everything life had been pointing at them. Noahs, Akumas, Exorcists, Innocence, Dark Matter, The Earl, it was all so large, so much bigger than one small Crow soldier. Inferiority, the worst feelings beyond Hatred and Guilt.

"Levirreir, what if—"

"_WE WILL NOT LOSE!_" Levirreir rounded on him the moment before he could ask the question he had intended. And then, Levirrier turned, walked, almost at a speed more becoming of a dash, away and out of the dark room where Allen Walker and Howard Link remained.

There was a soft sniffling, and someone was crying, tears striking the floor rapidly. Link looked behind himself at the boy suspended inches above the ground by wrappings of chains. Was he conscious? If so barely, oh so barely conscious, then he was crying. But he couldn't be conscious yet. Link sighed, it wasn't him. It wasn't him. It was someone else, someone who knew everything. Yes, that's right...

Howard wasn't here right now... Even though Link still was. He groaned, rubbing the dots on his forehead. He couldn't think right at the moment, his mind to stuffed with regrets and pity and facts.

_I'm sorry_, Link thought painfully, guilt eating away at him as he looked up at the bloody, suffering child. _But I can't feel sorry for you right now, Walker._ He too turned quickly, walking away from the cell.

He was going to get a few bottles from the kitchens, and then, he was going to Nina to beg for a few more headache cures.

_By-gones, by-gones, let us go,_

_Bright and red, absence of snow._


	11. Chapter 11

**I was kicking myself to get this up. Every day for the past two weeks it's been "DAMMIT! IT'S GOING UP TODAY!!" and then failure... (why is it taking so long to write?? Hopefully I'll speed up, soon...)**

**What? This _isnt _just a random story for Allen to suffer in? It actually has a _plot?? _(well, no, not really, but... Yeah... or something like a plot getting started, I think... ) (I hope I got all the historic events okay... the site I referenced seemed to like wars more than anything. )**

**I've been haunting the crossover area for a while (and I never realized how much I remembered of X-men and Batman until I actually read some things including them D8 ) If anyone wants I can give some stories that are guaranteed to keep you busy until y next update. Especially if you're not like me and prefer to take time with reading chapters as opposed to staying up as long as it takes to finish entire stories....**

**Is anyone else having trouble with the new reply messaging thing? 'Cause if it's just me, then that's why some people got double replies and/or none at all, so sorry about that...**

**I think there are more bugs on my wall then there are outside... I'm being civil to them and everything (conservationist ftw) it's just when they start sucking my blood I squash them... the world could learn a lot from that.**

**Allen's angsting took 4 whole pages. Oh yeah, I still got it. And the whole thing stretches out to 9 ¾ pages. Ba-BOOM! 8D**

**Disclaimer: I own bug guts, empty sprites, insomnia and a whole lot of immunities, is there anything else that I don't know about?**

_A soft music played from a nearby stand, a carnival organ playing childish melodies in joyful tones. It was snowing, little white specks of coat stuffing floating down from the light gray skies. It was the first time he had felt warm in a while, especially in winter. The check-coat he had been given was his first ever present, birthday present, Mana had said. He hadn't asked what that was, he was nervous his coat would be taken away if he asked._

_Looking back, he would think how silly the thought was, but at the time, bathed in distrust and spite, it was a perfectly plausible thought. Still, even then, he was so wanting to trust the big man who he had known for a year, a full year, and still hadnt once betrayed him. Not once called him a bad name nor attempted to harm him in anyway, not even his pride was ever in jeopardy with the big man._

_Mana was a friend, dare he even think it._

_But now was one of the times that he needed Mana, again, because he couldn't see. An older boy had gotten a look at his arm and thrown a brick at his— his forehead was bleeding now, where the skin had been scraped off, and the blood was making him close his eyes. _

"_Mana, I cant see," He whispered, hoping Mana was somewhere nearby. He had been only a little ways off before. _

"_Are you okay?" He was here. A soft grip lay on his shoulder, the deep voice of the man talking to him. It was always talking about music and happiness and the world, and it always sounded like those things. _

_He shook his head slowly as Mana carefully rubbed the blood away, probably on his clown uniform. He didn't want that to get dirty though, but it wasn't like he could do much when blood was blinding him._

"_Mana... Mana, where...?" He reached out an invisible hand, groping around for his other in the dark. A small, soft hand, not brittle and not worn, took hold of his hand, and squeezed protectively. Like an older brother._

"_I'm here," Answered a voice that wasn't Mana's. It was quieter, younger, thinner, like a child's voice. Almost like his..._

_Something was very wrong, but he didn't know that._

_He opened his eyes quickly, ignoring the sting of the blood peddling around them, and stared at what wasn't his father. "I'm here, Damian, stop worrying, you idiot," It was a child, healthy looking and with long black hair in a pony tail down his back._

_He smiled, but he didn't smile. Someone else took his mouth and made him smile, but he wasn't the one trying to smile— and then he said something in a voice that wasn't his, had never been his, and never would be his—_

_**(will be yours)**_

"_Sorry, brother."_

Allen sniffed as he woke, tears pulling at puffied, bleeding eyes. His arms scraped themselves against their sockets and joints and his whole body ached.

It was a dark room, and he was cold. His weary eyes opened halfheartedly.

He wanted to die.

The soft sounds of falling tears echoed around the room as the last rays of light in it were choked off as a door at the far end of the room, a thin, thin strip of light that cut briefly across his face before it vanished, and he was in the dark again.

The dark, cold room, all alone. Alone.

The edges of the chains were cold against him and the links pinched his skin, even as he simply lay there, shivering. He had subconsciously realized that he didn't have even the dirtied rag of a shirt left from before. The feeling of being exposed on golem film returned to him, like he were being displayed for the whole world to see his disgrace. What he could become, what he had been, what he was.

_I killed a man_. The thought was dull and lifeless within him, but it echoed resoundingly in the absence of everything else within him. _I may have killed more_. He had scared them at least. He had done that a lot, he thought, and he hadn't enjoyed a single minute of it. One might imagine a prisoner would like to frighten their captors in some way, at least, but he hated the thought and tried to roughly pushed it away like it were a burning rod, only to have it replaced with another empty thought that twisted his stomach. _I probably did kill more_.

His lips were chapped, he noted. They were dry and painful as he rubbed them together. His wrists hurt, he thought. They seared angrily above him, along with most of his arms and underarms, but for whatever reason, the feeling didn't seem to reach his brain. His legs were still, he realized. He had no idea how long he'd been hanging there, dead as a mannequin, waiting for someone to poke another needle in him.

That made him think of Espidan, and his consciousness almost slipped at the simple thought. He would rather thinking about death over thinking about torture.

...or maybe he wouldn't, he didn't know exactly.

He hated the prospect of death, he knew that, right? But was it more practical to die voluntarily, or involuntarily as many cases are, rather than be tortured? If in a choice between possible death or murder or torture but little prospect of death, which would be the more accepted choice, being more ethically, 'right'?

Mortal pain versus unknown results of death and the possibility of a resurrection (though with him, a resurrection was most unlikely, as there couldn't be many who gave a shit as to if he lived or died) which would lead to eternal torture until destruction has never been exactly an easy choice for anybody, least of all Allen, and yet, he found himself pondering these questions while currently under great physical strain, emotional fatigue, and general terror, and in a state of mind he wasn't quite familiar with. More often than not, he preferred to stray from the intellectual path, acting on the beliefs he viewed as most obvious and true.

_This's weird,_ Allen thought. His brain was aching with his attempts to answer the questions he had brought up himself, cluttering everything up, though it was certainly much better than any of the empty thoughts that he had been having earlier, maybe not even a minute earlier.

And that thought brought him back to something else that he didn't want to think about.

Did people who killed other people still get a second chance in Heaven? Or what if there was no Heaven? Or like the Episcopalians' believe, those who want to die automatically _forfeit _any and all chance to get into Heaven?

Yet again, what if there was no Heaven and it was all just a hopeless hoax to get people to believe in something bigger and allow people the strength to live their lives fairly and theoretically without intentionally causing harm to others around them? What if Heaven was a state of mind, or a comfort zone?

_What if he died to find out? Would anyone ever know the truth? WOULD ANYTHING AMOUT TO ANYTHING IF HE COULDN'T SEE IT HIMSELF?_

The answer to that, of course, was no.

He _wanted _to see it. He _wanted _to see the people going into town each morning, he _wanted _to see them going to the fairgrounds, he _wanted _to see the people he cared about again, he_ wanted_ to see them survive the war, he _wanted _to see the downfall of the Earl, he _wanted _to see the new Millennium, he _wanted _to see all that lay beyond the year 1900.

He _wanted _to see Queen Victoria's Funeral, he _wanted _to see the Wright Brother's first plane, he _wanted _to see The North Pole being reached, he _wanted _to see Gandhi lead India out of rule, he _wanted _to see The Great War, he _wanted _to see the American Flappers, he _wanted _to see the Great Depression, he _wanted _to see World War II, he _wanted _to see The Yalta Conference, he _wanted _to see the era of Jazz, he _wanted _to see Martin Luther King Jr. make a speech, he _wanted _to see the first man on the moon, he _wanted...._

He _wanted..._

The philosophical shield he had created shattered and he began to cry again. His head tilted down as his face grew so hot that he soon couldn't even tell if the tears were streaming anymore, he couldn't feel them on his burning skin. He soon couldn't breathe through his nose, his mouth open and gasping as sobs racked his pining frame.

He didn't want this! HE DIDN'T WANT THIS! He didn't want to die! He didn't want to be trapped here forever, in the dark, cold and alone and in pain! Why did it have to be him? Why? Why was it always him who was stuck with the misery and suffering?

_Why?WHY? _Never once had he complained or withered, not a single bemoaning word had passed his lips all these years and yet he was still here, in pain, hoping desperately for something to turn around— wasn't hoping and acting and trying so hard his hands were crippled and his feet were burnt, wasn't that enough for something?

"GOD, DAMN YOU!" He shouted. "I'M TIRED OF WAITING, IF YOU'RE REALLY UP THERE, AND I'M YOUR FUCKING FAVORITE, HELP ME, **DAMN YOU, HELP ME!**"

He stared at the ceiling, dark and stone. Cold. His chest rose and fell almost evenly, almost, but his breathing was harsh.

He was waiting, eyes light and a childish brown color, waiting. Waiting for _something_. Waiting, waiting when he himself could not act. And he waited, waited for it.

"Help me, already," He whispered, almost inaudibly to his own ears. His tears had stopped, but the tares were still there, in his flesh and in his mind. "Why... why aren't you h-helping m-me?" His eyes trembled, reverting back to a sorrowful gray. His voice shook and his lower lip was quivering.

"I-if you're so.. so powerful..." He sniffed, his head falling onto his chest, "And so... so _loving_ and m-magni... magnificent, then... t-then why..." His whole body trembled again. He was so angry, so scared, but mostly, he was tired. He was tired and he wanted to sleep a long sleep.

A long and beautiful sleep filled with magical, pretty, _lying _dreams that hadn't a hint of blood or fighting or death or pain. Something sugar-coated and completely fake, just like the warm arms of a man long, long ago used to be. He hadn't ever been sugar-coated before those arms, and had always thought it the best feeling ever. Why else would he try to sugar-coat everything? It made it bearable!

And no one had ever thanked him for it, never once. They all told him to grow up and keep his stupidity to himself.

If only they could see him now... he wanted to die, but he was so scared of it... he wanted to live.

"Why do y-you hate m-me so much?" He asked, begging the invisible, mocking being for an answer. But he would never get one.

He never got an honest reply from it in his life, and another tear echoed on the floor.

000

He was almost asleep. Almost, nearly escaping the darkness with blank dreams he wasn't even sure he had anymore when the door opened, bursting a painful light onto his face. He yelped at the light and was stiff, stunned in surprise, as he hadn't heard footsteps. Perhaps he had been closer to sleep than he thought?

"He's awake," A voice he didn't know— he had met a lot of voices like that, and almost all of them belonged to foot soldiers, guards. The didn't let many others contact him other than nurses and Crows. It was still so hard to tell which guards were what though; which would beat him if he struggled and which would make it so he couldn't right away. The ones that would be cruel on purpose and those that would be more careful. Ones that tried not to hurt him as he was unchained and ones that had tried to break his wrists on more than one occasion.

"Good, get him down," Nina's voice, darker than usual. He hoped she had gotten a kinder guard, at least this once, he hoped to not be in more pain. Just one more time wasn't too much, was it?

The footsteps unhidden in army boots were getting louder, and soon, he'd know. He wasn't sure he wanted to, though. He didn't want to discover someone had carefully taken him away only to send him back more damaged. The remnant of a shell of a heart would snap in half instantly if that happened. But he didn't want to be pulled on uncaring, the touch of a person who truly believed with all their hearts that he was an evil traitor. His heart wouldn't snap in half neatly, he was sure it would shatter.

He shivered at the carefulness the hands used to slowly unravel the chains that indented his skin and choked the movement out of him. Inch by inch, the guard lowered him to the floor until he slumped against the wall, his back bent oddly, his arms and legs numb under and around him and his neck twisting in a painful way, a few chains still gripping his left arm.

The soldier hesitated to unbind it, standing still in front of Allen for a long time. So long, it seemed, Allen had the time to very slowly and painfully readjust his neck, opening his eyes to be able to see, in the vaguest manner of the word.

The soldier in front of him was a boy, his head was shaved and he wore glasses and a red uniform, but his face was shaped like a boy's. The person who he had been crying and begging for to let him go was so young, and still, hesitating to touch him, like he was a vile little insect that couldn't be touched directly for fear of catching a deadly virus.

He stood so long Nina got down and undid that arm's chains herself.

The seals remained, cursing him to be weighted down so heavily it was painful, his arm always unmoving at his side. But mainly just cursing him to be seen, defenseless, and as a criminal.

"Allen?" Nina brushed hair out of his face, still red and stiff. His eyes moved slowly to look at her, but he tried not to move anything else. Breathing hurt. "Allen, you're being moved," she said. "You aren't going to be in a cell anymore, okay?"

He heard the words, but they didn't make any sense to him.

"Nurse, I don't think he understands you..." The guard said slowly, as though somewhat fearful of being reprimanded. Of course he was, Allen had seen Nina berate many guards and even Crows and Levirrier at times over how they treated themselves and, on occasion, frightened those who came too close to Allen's area with crueler things in their minds.

Of course he was was a little nervous around her.

"He can hear me," Nina said, through a cotton screen, Allen thought the guard relaxed a little as she didn't sound angry. "He just cant respond right now."

"Why not?" Ignorance.

"Because he's probably _paralyzed_ and in _agony_ right now!" Ah, there came the snap. The soldier shrunk fearfully. Nina scoffed. "Stop being a baby, he cant move, much less stand on his own, so help me!" The guard scrambled down to Allen's level, tenderly lifting the boy up by his waist, and feeling quite uncomfortable as he did. "Mind his arm," Nina hissed as she worked under the boy as well.

Within the first five attempts, Nina had sent the soldier to get Thomas from 'whatever the hell he was doing, 'cause it certainly wasn't as important as this' and the soldier sprinted, happy to get out of the dark room with the injured boy and the angry head nurse.

000

He was still aching when Thomas had come, the big man scooping his small form up easily. He fit well in his arms, like a child being carried by a father.

Consciously or not, he relaxed himself in Thomas's arms, warm, strong, and protecting him. The contact with another human being, and some so careful and genuine was rare, precious. He didn't want to be taken out of those arms and just be rocked to sleep by his footsteps jostling him slightly up and down. Like a house near a railroad, when the trains became a lullaby that rocked you to sleep.

He would have been oh, so happy to just remember the places he'd been in the arms. Because he missed remembering without shame.

He missed not having his limbs ache each time he woke up.

He missed the straining smiles and the loud noises and the music and the people. Allen muttered something to Thomas.

"I'm tired."

Thomas didn't say anything, he must not have heard him.

Allen's eyes opened wearily, burning from the lights, and he wasn't even sure why he opened them anymore. Each time they opened something worse seemed to happen. He was tired of it. Tired of not having a name...

"Allen?" Soft, human hands brushed hair off his cheek, smooth and gentle. "Are you awake again?" He didn't move, just flickering his eyes and looking around for her.

He couldn't see Nina, she must have been beside him.

"We're almost there," She said, "Can you stay awake for a bit longer?" He opened his mouth a bit, just enough for a small grunted gasp to come out. He didn't feel like he could talk. "Alright, just hold on for a bit longer..."

"Just down here, Head Nurse," The soldier from before said, not sounding but so surprised at the gentleness that Nina used with the semi-conscious Noah. Or what people said was a Noah. He looked so... _average_. Like a child, young, but frightened... and hurt.

That was probably why Nina was being so careful with him. He looked like he would die if you pricked him with a pin, all the life coming flooding out of a ever-so-small hole.

A turn left and two doors down. "This is it," He pulled out a keyring and handed it to Nina, the five key to all the different locks on the door clacking together and making her frown. So many locks, and the door was some sort of dulled metal, with no gap between it and the floor. Whoever designed it didn't like the prospect of the person within getting out.

She fiddled with the keys, trying each to discover which lock fit which, using the most obvious thing she could think of— process of elimination. When a key fit into one, she held it off to the side with there thumb and proceeded onto the next lock quickly, hoping to get Allen inside and take care of him while he was still able to keep a hold on reality. Finally, the door opened.

As she looked in, the room had no decorations.

There wasn't a window on any of the walls, just peppers of binding spells stuck in seemingly random places. There was a single block rising out of and still connected to the floor that acted as a table, a smaller block beside it as a chair. A bed was in the corner across from the entrance, a bed without sheets and with a stiff mattress that didn't look like it would bend if they put half the staff of the Order on it. There was no pillow, no comfort, nothing to decorate the walls or ceiling except for an air vent in the center, far away from walls and a speaker beside it. The lights were built into the panels above them. This was a safety room.

In the other far corner, there was a small inlet, that, upon looking in, was a bathroom. There wasn't a door on it. A simple toilet and a sink with no heat control and no other hygienic tools, such as a razor or a bathtub, were anywhere in sight. There were no mirrors nor movable objects of any sort.

There was a small device beside the door on the wall that could change temperature— it had limits on how hot or cold anything in the room could get. Everything in the room was dead-bolted down and as safe as any cell would ever get.

Nina swallowed nervously as Thomas set Allen on the bed and the soldier stood back in the doorway. It was infinitely better than the cell in the basement, but it was still inhumane to hold anyone here in the colorless confines of such a room where even suicide looked impossible.

_They really thought this through_, Nina told herself. _He cant get out of here, not with his arm bound and no mind..._

The boy was still on the bed apart from the shallow and shaky rise and fall of his chest. A wheezing sound penetrated the world of silence in the room, like some sort of liquid was inside his lungs.

Nina frowned. She wouldn't be so surprised if there was a lot of shit in him, just judging by the outward appearance.

Allen hadn't been cleaned off in the past month, blood and fluids and sweat plastering his hair together and onto his forehead, smearing over his face and chest, with stray strands of the shirt he had been given still clinging onto him. His cheeks were bony and his eyes dark with lack of sleep, his sides coming in to cling around his ribs from the food that was so infrequent and in much too small amounts.

The scar on his face was getting darker, she thought, the red looking more poisonous than any sort of scar tissue she had ever seen.

Oh, who was she kidding? Scars weren't even supposed to be red.

She shivered, not because of the controlled cool, but something else that was radiating in the room. It could have been the daunting blandness or the strange lights built into the ceiling, the thought that the room was inescapable or the simple presence of the person the room had been designed for in the first place.

He was currently lying on the bed, wheezing.

Nina shook her head. This was too much, no matter what anyone said. Turning, she ushered Thomas and the guard out before exiting herself and closing the door behind her, with nothing but a small whisper of reassurance that she was sure the child would never believe.

000

"It'll get better now..."

_I don't believe you._

It was the only thought he had to fill the empty place in his mind, but soon, more followed.

_My chest hurts._

Was one of the first.

_My chest hurts. Why are the lights like that? Where am I? Nina normally stays longer. I wonder why she didn't. I don't believe her. What was that? Oh, the door. That was the locks. Click is such an annoying sound. I wonder who locked it. Was it Nina? I don't believe her. Normally she stays longer. __My chest hurts. I cant move. Is it going to heal? It's bright in here._

His eyelids flickered as he stared up into the lights above him, put into the ceiling. That wasn't normal.

_It's so quiet here. Is that my breathing? My chest hurts. My arm's heavy. Those lights are bright. Why is everything so quiet? Oh, right, no one's in here but me. I forgot. I wonder why they left. Nina usually stays longer. Was that a click? What's that click from? The door's already locked, right? Nina locked it. That's weird. She normally stays longer._

A second click sounded and the room was plunged into darkness.

Allen's eyes widened and the laxness of his mind was thrown askew with familiar crushing panic. That was how he discovered the final feature of the room that Nina had missed.

The walls were completely soundproofed.

**Challenge: Guess what each feature or lack-there-of is doing in the room and how it works.  
****ex- (lack) no razor (why) Allen cant commit suicide (how) because he cant cut his wrists  
****I put a lot of thought into the room, so... yeah, I'm hoping people will notice things 8) I could design a mental hospital... but it would probably make the patients more mental if I did...**


End file.
